Proenza Schouler Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez preempted the official start of New York Fashion Week by 48 hours with a small show for 140 people. The cycle is spinning into motion again, and, in pole position, the Proenza Schouler designers assumed some responsibility for setting the season’s tone. At a preview, they seemed primed and ready.

“We really stripped things back to the point where we felt like there wasn’t a lot more to strip beyond last season,” McCollough said. “This season, we’re rebuilding some of our codes from the past in new ways.”

Fashion has confronted a summer of challenges, from the wobbly wholesale system to sales declines to big hires not producing commensurate results. McCollough and Hernandez have clocked the prevailing mood. “No one needs another black suit,” Hernandez said. “What’s luring people, at least for us, is an emotional quality—like you look at that and you say, ‘that’s so amazing, I need it.’ It’s about trying to elicit an emotional response.”

This morning their Tribeca loft venue glowed with amber September light and a spirit of reunion, and on the runway the clothes looked refreshed. Scarf-like square shapes formed the foundation of the collection. They said they were thinking of sails, though they hoped that the nautical theme didn’t read too literally. The squares were draped across the body, which meant you saw flashes of skin on sleeveless striped tops worn with button-front sailor pants, as well as on fluid floral print dresses with an appealing sense of motion. Knit dresses and top-and-skirt sets in graphic marinière stripes looked especially distinctive; they could be contenders for the kind of collector’s status their velvet tie-dye dresses from half-a-decade ago still enjoy.

Asked to identify their codes, Hernandez and McCollough mentioned pleats and fringe, and both treatments were in ample supply. The former gave long jersey dresses in ivory, black, red, and lilac a classical Grecian quality, while the latter, constructed from both leather and tubes of organza, had more of a punkish, modern edge, especially the when they turned up on skirts with uneven, slashed hems.

Rubber rain shoes and boots made in collaboration with Sorel and low-profile sneakers with subtle PS logos grounded many of the looks, giving them a street-ready attitude resonant of their New York stomping grounds. On that note, a pair of sail-back short shirtdresses are likely to find a lot of takers, too.