In a move that has pushed the fashion industry rumour mill into overdrive, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the creative masterminds behind Proenza Schouler, have announced their departure from the label they founded in 2002.
The pair, synonymous with the effortlessly cool aesthetic of the New York-based brand, will step down as co-creative directors at the end of January, leaving a void at the helm of one of fashion’s most promising houses.
Speaking to WWD, Hernandez reflected on the decision.
“The time feels right to make the personal decision to step down from our day-to-day leadership role at the company and hand over the creative reins to someone new,” he told the publication. “We have always valued risk-taking and a sense of adventure and feel ready to open ourselves up for whatever comes next.”
McCollough echoed this sentiment.
“While change is never easy, this decision—one we’ve carefully considered—feels like the right step at the right time, at this stage in our lives,” he added.
“We’ve had many chapters with Proenza Schouler, from our early days when having a brand felt like a fun, possibly temporary, stage in our lives to later when things started to become more serious, and we realised that a real business was taking shape,” the statement continued. “We didn’t have a specific goal in mind when we started the company, it was merely a way to continue making the clothes we believed in. Somewhere along the way, it became a real business with real responsibilities.”
The announcement marks the end of an era for Proenza Schouler, a brand that has become a pillar of the American fashion landscape for more than two decades. From humble beginnings to becoming a mainstay of New York Fashion Week, McCollough and Hernandez’s journey has long received both critical and commercial success.
Their work and creative vision, which has long embraced experimental silhouettes and sportswear-inspired designs favourites by Chloë Sevigny and Kate Bosworth, is consistently celebrated as incomparable to other brands.
As far as where they’ll go next, speculation about their future was on the rise in the weeks leading up to their official announcement. Industry insiders and enthusiasts have been proliferating whispers of a jump to Spanish house Loewe for the duo, replacing Jonathan Anderson, who is rumoured to be in talks with Dior following Maria Grazia Chiuri’s alleged upcoming departure.
While all the leadership changes in the last few months are already making our heads spin, this domino effect could herald one of the most dramatic creative reshuffles in recent fashion history—and that’s truly saying something.
This story first appeared on GRAZIA International.
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