Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez showed their Fall Winter 2010 Proenza Schouler collection at MILK studios in New York last week, with the likes of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Vogue’s Anna Wintour and A#9′s cover girl Chloë Sevigny watching from the front row. The show was in a relatively sterile setting, unfettered by any excessive staging or backdrops – with its only gimmick being that it was entirely broadcast live online. The boys were some of a select few designers showing in New York to choose this revolutionary option, alongside Marc Jacobs and Rodarte, dropping the exclusivity and closed doors of such an event for up-to-the-minute streaming content.

It was to the tinkling sound of bells that the first model entered the room, beginning the show with a deep, dark pout and tousled side-parted hair, courtesy of make-up artist Diane Kendal and hairstylist Didier Malige. She walked in high-waisted cigarette trousers in an abstract graffiti print, with a shrunken burgundy duffel coat and studded, buckled clog-pumps – all signalling that Jack and Lazaro had stepped off the futuristic beaches of SS10 and looked back to the city streets of the late 20th century for their inspiration for fall.

As the false sense of security of the chiming bells fell away, a techno-laced rap from teen MC’s The Fly Girlz took over the speakers, providing a subversive street-wise soundtrack to the precisely cut garments, that came in both fine traditional fabrics and new-age digital-printed textiles. The colour palette was suitably dark, with a stunning petrol green and midnight blue cutting through the monochrome looks in the start of the show, moving through indigo highlights on graffiti prints, murky aquatic tones on the shattered kaleidoscopic patterns and ending in sprays of rose and cornflower blues on flouncy party frocks.

BORN 2 B FLY | THE FLY GIRLZ

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Further breaking down the collection, tuxedo-like club collared shirting and slinky polo necks provided a base for the signature slim silhouette – as stylist Marie Chaix layered on these foundations with a slinky leather bustier and dress, chunky fairisle knits and duffel coats with wide lapels that sat off the shoulder. Legs were certainly on show even for Fall Winter – under draped or babydoll A-line dresses with cut-out details. Trompe l’oeil skirts looked like folded-down blazers (an update of last season’s waist-tied leather jacket skirts) and others came with various pleats, as well as flared shorts and the aforementioned cigarette pants belted high at the waist.

Jackets were offered in cropped double breasted wools, and others came with bomber sleeves and striped goatfur collars, following the luxurious sportswear theme of seasons past. The shoes were a collection almost in themselves, utilising a myriad of exotic leather textures in a quasi-1990′s platform style with a convex curved heel, brogue and creeper details, buckles, buttons and chelsea boot elastic.

The show plied a wide base of modern cultural references from modern varsity to garden party gal, via New England with a dark English punk twist. Sound like a mouthful? It was, but when executed with such elegance in proportions, technical fabrications and subtle, dark colour palette – it just worked. Another triumphant progression of the awkward New American sophistication that is Proenza Schouler. Well done guys!