Proenza Schouler

Proenza Schouler

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez met at Parsons in New York and founded Proenza Schouler, named for their mothers' maiden names, when Barneys bought their senior thesis collection outright in 2002. The label built its reputation on the PS1 satchel, introduced in 2008, and on a run of CFDA awards including the first-ever CFDA and Vogue Fashion Fund prize in 2004.

Dresses

Dresses carry the pared-down, slightly architectural sensibility McCollough and Hernandez showed even in their Parsons thesis, which Barneys bought in full before either designer had graduated. The silhouettes lean toward contrast, unexpected cuts against clean proportion, rather than any single signature shape.

Shoes

Footwear followed the label's early 2000s runway success, part of the accessories build-out that eventually won Proenza Schouler the CFDA Accessory Designer of the Year award in 2009. It carries the same directional, slightly cerebral point of view as the clothing.

Bags

Bags are anchored by the PS1, the satchel introduced in 2008 that became the label's most recognizable product and effectively established Proenza Schouler as an accessories brand, not just a runway one. Anything nearby in this category is measured against that same functional, understated design logic.

Tops and shirting

Shirting shows the label's New York, downtown-cool register at its most wearable, the register that drew comparisons to Chloe Sevigny and Paloma Elsesser as the kind of women who wear it. It stays simple on the surface with small structural details doing the actual work.

Skirts

Skirts continue the label's long-running interest in contrast, McCollough and Hernandez have said for years that contrast in silhouette and proportion is their central design idea, applied here in a smaller, easier category. It is a good entry point into the label's thinking without the commitment of a full look.

Trousers and shorts

Tailoring stays clean and considered, consistent with a brand that built its name on wearable but conceptually rigorous basics rather than showpieces. Proenza Schouler's early Barneys success came from exactly this kind of restraint done well.

Jackets and blazers

Outerwear draws on the same art-and-culture references that have run through the brand's advertising campaigns and collaborations for two decades, translated into structure rather than imagery. The cut favors precision over volume.

More from the collection

The rest of the assortment, spread across four retailers, reflects a label now designed under Rachel Scott following the January 2025 announcement that founders McCollough and Hernandez would step back from design to focus on Loewe. It is worth watching for how much of the original point of view carries forward.

Our honest take

Proenza Schouler earned its reputation the hard way, through CFDA recognition and a genuinely influential accessory in the PS1, not through spectacle, and that discipline still reads in these categories. The open question, with its founding designers now departed for another house, is whether the label's next chapter keeps that same rigor or starts to drift.