The Proenza Schouler boys’ debut at Loewe would be right at home in New York

You have to admit that there is genius in a ‘top’ that looked like a sweater draped over shoulders, with the sleeves over the breasts, then knotted, presumably secured with Hollywood tape to ensure modesty, even if optional. If so, there is no denying that it takes geniuses to consider taping as wearing. Similarly, it takes a wunderkind to dream up a chemise so long, the shirt tails extended beyond the confines of the shorts or bodysuits they were tucked into. Archetypes can be made to do wondrous things. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s learning experience as debut at Loewe showed they are the perfect alibis. The two men have very large shoes to fill, and their two pairs of shod feet took up enough space in just one side of the shoes, leaving the rest to the entire atelier, and sewing machines.

Mr McCollough and Mr Hernandez also delightfully expressed strategic cleverness in being inspired by the fashion climate of 1950s America: the predilection for replication, specifically European designs. It was marvelous to see those mini skirts with trailing panels that recall Prada’s from spring/summer 2022, only now Loewe’s were comfortably stiffer. And thrilling to witness T-shirts with perma-crinkles that brought us back to Balenciaga’s 51th couture collection in 2022, only now they came in sweater knit of leather yarn. Talking about Balenciaga, they had, in 2023, a real terry towel as a skirt. Now, Loewe had theirs, made of 3-D-printed pile, as a dress. It was totally nostalgic, too, to see a change of continent in the multi-layered shirt collars and plackets, so evocative of Comme des Garçons SHIRT in the ’90s. Sheer joy it was for us to be able to make out the subtle nods that usually only Robert Langdon could decipher.

In guiding Loewe to a new creative path, the Proenza Schouler boys (they still own the label), showed how a luxury house of a massive conglomerate need not write the code, just clone the cipher. For Loewe’s new fans, the difference was probably undetectable, proving the brand’s innovation was not mere echo, but a refining of what’s characteristic of social media by rendering it in high-definition, leather-centric luxury. And for that to matter, they had to introduce something quirky. Oddity is part of the Loewe DNA under Jonathan Anderson, so oddity had to be introduced. But this was fabulously relatable TikTok dreg than art-world soul: A pair of strange, striped strapless dresses with fronts that look like two bales of fabric, reduced to a fifth of its original yardage, their ends draped over the top so that shoppers get to see a substantial part of the design/print. How charming was that?

It is said that Mr McCollough and Mr Hernandez was bringing what critics have called “New York clean” to Loewe, along with the much-appreciated downtown cool, which may explain the T-shirts (with retro-style graphics that Old Navy would be delighted to call theirs), the truckers, the baseball jackets, predictable as they were. In fact, those sort-of-sweaters were probably a subversion of Ivy League preppy—an unthreatening style many Americans still think is the height of fashion. The new creative directors brilliantly knocked some urban American sensibility into Loewe, short of planting a flag on the runway. But Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez did take the customary bow at the end of the show, wearing long-sleeved Ralph Lauren polo shirts. What could be more America than that?

Photos: Loewe