If runways are for fantasy and "editorial" experimentation, the off-seasons are about reality-based clothes—the kind we buy to wear every day. It's no big surprise, really, that Resort and pre-fall have become such an essential part of designers' businesses, Proenza Schouler's included. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez's basics had Style.com editors dreaming that our daily lives looked so good.
Take the leather perfecto they opened with. Painted white and cut in an oversize, boxy shape, it could've marched down a catwalk, and it just may come February. The designers excel at creating desire, be it with the unique "plaster-y" knit they used for their second-skin turtleneck, an item that's been turning up in more predictable materials everywhere this month, or by rethinking what a logo print could be. In their hands, it doesn't look like a logo at all, rather a graphic black and white motif they used for wrap dresses and bias-cut pants that spiraled down the legs. The new Courier bag, a softer, unstructured take on the hit PS1 bag, seems poised for similar success.
A trip to Fiji inspired their photo prints of watery caves. Rendered more simply than the patchworked frocks at their Spring show, the pinafore and T-shirt dresses (with built-in corsets) on which the prints appeared just might've been the most covetable pieces in the lineup.
