Proenza Schouler Goes Casual(ish) for Spring 2017
The clothes at Proenza Schouler are the kind of clothes you describe as Fashion-with-a-capital-F. For the past thirteen years the label has been around, Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez have explored and pushed the boundaries and expectations of what American Fashion can be. Their clothes could at various times within the last decade be described as “directional” and “editorial.” Basically, clothes that you can only wear in real life if you work in fashion or if you’re a model who — well, you know what I’m trying to say.
But there has been a slight shift within the last few years. Although McCullough and Hernandez have not abandoned their penchant for dramatic silhouettes, a newfound ease and, dare I say, casual vibe has permeated their collections. True, Proenza Schouler-casual is not jeans and T-shirt casual. But from the first look, an off-the-shoulder short black dress with white ruffled details at the sleeves and empire waist, with an asymmetric hemline that wobbled wildly around the body, worn with chunky sandal flatforms that would make Baby Spice weak at the knees, everything just felt very easy-going. (Sure, it’s not a T-shirt dress, but there was still something about it that made you think you could just throw it on and go.) Elsewhere, a black and white striped double-ish breasted jacket worn with a fluttery black and blue color-blocked skirt, and a knitted tank midi-dress in a Mondrian-esque geometric pattern had a similar vibe – even if the skirt did have a fringed hem.
A series of three patterned dresses with cutouts and tie details, gave the impression of being the result of some very talented Scarlett O’Haras, fashioning a dress on the fly out of one piece of fabric. Oversized graphic tees with Dada-esque imagery, fit right in with the merch and logo-mania vibe fashion is currently going through, without it seeming like they’re hopping on a bandwagon. Considering this was a spring show, perhaps most surprising were the amount of jackets and coats, one in a chunky multi-color fur with a sweatshirt tied around the waist — but then again, when the clothes hit the stores in February or March, we are all usually still freezing in the city. A very artful solution to all the buy now/wear now/seasonless clothing drama that has kept the fashion industry enraptured for the past…forever.
Most successful of all were the oversized chandelier earrings worn by all the girls, but also the knits that closed out the show. One in that deliciously ‘70s shade of orange-brown, had circular cutouts at the chest and was tucked into a paperbag waist skirt in what is surely the thinnest of leathers that again, had a real I just tied this thing on my waist and I hope it stays on! feel. Another came with a trefoil cutout at the chest (artfully missing the breasts, of course), and the final look, a black turtleneck with a giant heart cutout that was the most unexpected, but it also fully captured my feelings for this entire collection.
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