Tommy Hilfiger and Jon Batiste preparation aside, there's a tinge of melancholy on the fall 2024 runways so far this season, which isn't surprising considering the state of things.
“It's probably the most black clothing looks we've ever done,” Jack McCollough said backstage after the Proenza Schouler show, where designers showed a minimalist, almost all-black collection that focused on silhouette and softness. , from rugged outerwear (boiled wool peacoats and double-faced wool coats with protective collars), to hand-trimmed shearling coats and fringed blanket dresses worn twisted with the torso visible through the back cut, layers scarves that wrap the shoulders and a giant safety pin closure.
Those final dresses, which revealed a hint of bare midriff beneath all the layers, were a metaphor for what the designers were trying to achieve this season: the contradiction between wanting to expose yourself and the desire to wrap yourself in a security blanket.
“The fashion calendar is so fast that now the world feels upside down, we work from the heart and instinct,” explained Lázaro Hernández. “It's about protecting yourself and wrapping yourself in softness, beauty, luxury, things that make you feel good.”
They played a lot with simple shapes, showing net dresses with front panels that flipped back to become shiny leather capes and sheaths constructed from simple rectangular shapes. Sheer and opaque knit slip dresses concealed and revealed, and viscose turtlenecks trapped button-down collared shirts underneath, “blurring real life,” as McCollough put it. The total sum was small and quiet, but perhaps too small.
The designers, like many of their New York peers, are trying to figure out how to navigate the ever-changing waters of fashion and retail, and maintain the momentum of last fall when they reset their collection by focusing on wardrobe pieces. They stopped showing before the fall, so they can channel their creativity into the two main collections that are both editorial and commercial. “Basically, we're trying to slow everything down,” Hernández said of the film, explaining that they don't want to sell one collection in January and then another in February.
They have also begun to look for opportunities internationally, seeing an uptick in Europe, where they recently opened stores in several department stores, and in China.
“I think when we started fashion I was in a very different place,” McCollough said. “For most designers, each show was something totally different. And there weren't that many designers either. Now there is a lot of noise. And I think you really have to stay strong and consistent, otherwise people get confused as to who you are.”
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