Initial reaction:
At Proenza Schouler it's always a challenge of the will to remain in your seat. There's always the intense temptation to jump up and stop the model so you can touch the fabric, and feel something you've no doubt never felt before. For AW14, patchwork coats and dresses combined textures you'd never think would lay flat, and yet the sculptural, rounded silhouettes were pristine.
Music:
Michel Gaubert's remix of Missy Elliott's "Work It" had people nodding and bouncing that we didn't know could nod or bounce.
Prints on prints on prints:
Backstage, Lazaro Hernandez said that the designers hoped no one would know exactly where the various prints came from, but that they felt cohesive. Here's what we saw: slightly distorted giraffe and zebra print, squigglies that suggested Memphis Design is now part of the Proenza lexicon for good, a wavy pattern that looked like the negative of a photograph of ice flows taken from above, and then dense splatter paint, as if Jackson Pollock decorated pottery in secret on the side.
Inspiration:
The boys were inspired by a trip to the Venice Biennale, but also, after two soft, quiet collections, they were craving energy and hot color.
Seeing red:
When guests entered the space at Gavin Brown, it was flooded with neon red light. The lights came on for the show, and immediately after the red was back. It looked like the glow of a darkroom. Perhaps the Proenza boys want us to develop along with them.
