Proenza Schouler Fall 2012
With the powerful, relentless tread of warriors on a warpath, the Proenza Schouler girls, with their shaggy Chrissie Hynde hair and thick-heeled riding boots, stomped the runway like an avenging samurai army-wearing a few of the most enjoyable clothes we’ve seen all week.
“We’ve been working hard!” said Jack McCollough backstage after this exhilarating show-and it showed. But he and Lazaro Hernandez had indulged inside the luxury of a month-long trip to the mystical mountain kingdom of Bhutan, and Nepal within the Himalayas before work began-a mind-cleansing voyage that clearly left them brimming with ideas. The first one was the idea of clothing as protection.
Their opening looks were all made from cotton, a stunning choice for a fall collection, except that the pieces were quilted and padded or were waffle-textured like over-scaled piqué so they convincingly promised winter warmth (and the way about that antelope fur clutch?). The large news was inside the radical new shapes-giant, spreading volume for brief dresses and tops worn with low-slung cricket pants that resembled twenties Oxford bags (“We like something slouchy,” they said). The patchwork piecing and asymmetric fastenings suggested elements of traditional Far Eastern dress-just like the cheongsam, or Bhutanese national costume-the men’s knee-length gho robe; the women’s kira; and the toego, a large, short jacket-which can be mandatory wear for the country’s citizens, but these ideas should be would becould very well be grafted directly to a radically reworked biker jacket, peacoat, or sweatshirt in volumes that suggested eighties Memphis Group and Jean-Paul Goude era exaggeration.
The masks and samurai uniforms worn by kendo swordsmen resulted in experiments with woven leather-a coat like a cage of loose-woven and knotted black leather cord that exposed the paprika-colored dress trapped beneath, let’s say, or a brand new metallic paillette that the designers had developed with leather strips threaded through it to create an effect that was part Edo armor, part Paco Rabanne sixties chain-link.
Leather was blistered and perforated to signify depth, and brocades (in an Asian screen palette of duck-egg blue and rust orange) woven with honeycomb motifs.
For evening, the detailing became much more elaborate-fabric figured with the landscapes and chrysanthemum blooms of Japanese obi sashes for brief dresses with asymmetric flounces on the hem, and silk-embroidered birds (peacocks, Lady Amherst pheasants, fighting cocks) decorating front of the chicest baseball jackets, and a finale shift with something of the casual slouch of a couple of dungarees.
It is unquestionably the mark of singular (make that double-trouble) talent to take such traditional-even storied-elements of costume and national dress, graft it onto iconic everyday wardrobe pieces, and bring a suite as powerfully modern and seductive as this one. Bravi.
