Via Interview Magazine, A BLOG offers an insightful and intimate conversation between long-time friends Chloë Sevigny and Proenza Schouler designers’ Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez. From road trips to lost pooches, the trio discuss life, love, art & fashion in this candid piece.

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It has been nearly nine years since Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez – both 23 and fresh out of design school at Parsons The New School for Design, where they met and worked together as classmates-set up a womenswear label incorporating their mothers’ maiden names. Their almost instantaneous rise through the realms of the fashion world as Proenza Schouler-seemingly so unscripted that they hardly had a business model when they began-is the stuff of lightning New York success stories.

In the early 2000s, with many of the city’s top designers either retiring or fading out, the hunt was on for fresh, untapped talent, and Proenza Schouler had plenty of it. But as the decade wore on, something exquisite happened: The design duo wasn’t merely filling some vacant fashion niche. McCollough and Hernandez were creating a fully articulated, utterly unexpected sense of style for a young, urban, 21st-century woman. The designers referenced the past with certain shapes and layers-grunge, the 1960s-but didn’t get stuck in it. This woman walked with a street-tough, masculine gait. She was almost a veteran of raves and goth clubs, but was still new in the city and up for going out.

Proenza Schouler have become masters of precise, militaristic silhouettes that allow for radical plays of color and texture. The hues and prints are electric, the fabrics veer from thick and aggressive to fragile and surprisingly soft. For their Spring 2011 collection, they continued their evolution but added a feminine polish that suggested this art girl of their dreams could also be competent enough to be serious and dependable-an acid-house mix of knits, tweeds, and chiffon.

Now both 32, McCollough and Hernandez should finally be set free from their depiction as upstart fashion kids taking on the establishment. They’ve graduated to become the leaders of the charge. Still a couple, in and out of the studio, the two spend as much time in New York these days as they do either traveling for inspiration or hiding out upstate on their farm. Unsurprisingly, one of their favorite women to dress is Chloë Sevigny, who just returned to New York after wrapping the final season of Big Love and visited the guys in their studio in SoHo. But before any questions on life as designers, she wanted the lowdown on how Jojo, Hernandez’s miniature Pinscher, briefly went missing, only to have Sevigny come to the rescue, 2,000 miles away.

READ THE INTERVIEW AT INTERVIEWMAGAZINE.COM

Portrait by Craig McDean, Jack & Lazaro both wear Jil Sander.

Today A BLOG presents an exclusive, candid interview between Proenza Schouler‘s covergirl Chloë Sevigny and our friend and collaborator Kristopher Arden Houser. She shares her thoughts on Proenza Schouler’s Fall Winter 2010 collection, their issue of A, and discovering the proud American within.

On A#9:

Kristopher Arden Houser: Had you worked with Richard Burbridge before, and what was it like on set shooting the cover of A’s #9 ?

Chloë Sevigny: I had shot with Richard early in my career for a UK magazine, so it was comfortable, until I realized how many cute photo assistants were on set. They were playing really great music and I realized we were all at Sway  (a club in N.Y. popular for  playing a nearly all Smith’s soundtrack) the  Sunday before.

KH: for A#9′s launch you traveled to Florence, Italy with the Proenza Schouler boys & their team of NY collaborators – what was the most memorable moment from Pitti?

CS: I remember feeling really American, or even proud to be an American. I went with them to Florence with our New York posse like Kembra (Pfahler), Spencer (Product) and Jack / Lazaro and I was proud of them as American, New York, designers.

KH: If you could have recommended one more artist for inclusion / collaboration within their issue, who would you have suggested?

CS: In a way I could see Doug Aitken fitting into the issue nicely. Maybe its his California, music, surfer, artist sensibility. I actually did my first project with him in California, they sent me for a music video that he was shooting, I was in High School, and I thought it so glamourous – I was staying at the Roosevelt Hotel (pre-renovation) and I saw Vanna White in the parking lot.

On the Proenza Schouler Fall Winter 2010 collection:

KH: In one sentence what was the feel of the Proenza Schouler Fall Winter 2010 collection, for you?

CS: This collection felt like a re-interpretation of classics, I like their use of preppy staples like pleats, micro-mini’s and school girl dresses.

KH: You do like those micro-mini’s don’t you {we both laugh in agreement}

KH: What piece are you most excited to wear?

KH: Of the collection, or in general, when wearing leather what is your color preference?

CS:  A hard biker-black…

KH: hence the slick back hair as of late?

CS: Yes (laughing) perhaps

KH: What was the biggest risk Proenza Schouler took in this collection that you admire?

CS: The shoes. They had this Peter Fox feel to them with a Deee-Lite heel. They are (P.S.) a few seasons ahead of everyone else, and of course I think they are one of the best American designers, people will catch-on in a year or so.

Above image: “In bed, Florence”. Chloë Sevigny with Lazaro Hernandez (left) and Jack McCollough (right) of Proenza Schouler, taken during Pitti Immagine, June 2009.

A BLOG presents the online release of A MAGAZINE curated by Proenza Schouler.

A fast-forward step from last month’s online release of A#1, we proudly announce that A#9 is the final step in our very first online project, beginning the ever-expanding archives of the A World.

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Proenza Schouler are Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez, a New York-based design duo who took their mothers’ maiden names to name their label after graduating Parsons School of Design in 2002. Barneys bought their graduate collection in its entirety, beginning their stellar rise to the top of the New York circuit. They have since won the CFDA Perry Ellis Award for new talent in 2003, the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award in 2007, and the CFDA Accessory designer of the year award 2009.

Their womenswear designs offer a fresh and feminine vision in elegant, directional styles that range through tailored sportswear to layered cocktail and eveningwear. Exacting a modern, clean aesthetic with technical fabrics and an expert use of muted colours with bold highlights, Proenza Schouler take abstract inspirations from a wide array of modern art references, from the large-scale land art of Donald Judd’s Marfa, Texas to the Pop Art movement. Their muses include the actress and fashion icon Chloë Sevigny, who appears on the cover of the magazine, starry-eyed in a soft and alluring image by Richard Burbridge.

Throughout the month of March and beyond, A BLOG explores Proenza Schouler’s ‘Made in the USA’ issue – a landmark for Jack and Lazaro as the first American designers to make an A. Their research for the magazine took the boys in unexpected and exciting directions, from roadtripping across the United States to discover Donald Judd’s Texas artist collective, to chatting with the legendary Bruce Weber in a candid interview with Derek Blasberg, and offering their archives to an assortment of prestigious photographers and stylists to reinterpret for A#9. This magazine is not only an eye-opener for readers, but for its two curators also.

Please click here to see A#9 online at WWW.AMAGAZINECURATEDBY.COM, the final title in this archive series. A#1 by Maison Martin Margiela, A#2 by Yohji Yamamoto, A#3 by Haider Ackermann, A#4 by Jun Takahashi, A#5 by Martine Sitbon, A#6 by Veronique Branquinho, A#7 by Kris Van Assche and A#8 by Riccardo Tisci are also all available to view online now.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYFRITN6txY[/youtube]

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!

Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler hosted the party of the week in New York city on Monday night,  when they invited their collaborators and friends to toast the US launch of A#9. Their choice of venue was a townhouse in Soho Mews, the new luxury condo development in West Broadway.

The crisp pages of their ‘Made in the USA’ edition were showcased inside the townhouse for guests to see the beautiful work of the designers and their collaborators, including that of performance artist Kalup Linzy (who was also in attendance).

And what would the A#9 NYC party be without it’s cover girl, the divine miss Chloë Sevigny? She dazzled in a Proenza Schouler leather belted jumpsuit, exclaiming “I feel a little bit like a super-slut superhero!”

Other guests included cover photographer Richard Burbridge, Derek Blasberg (who interviewed Bruce Weber for a piece in the issue) and Yvonne Force Villareal of Art Production Fund, the veritable ‘force’ behind much of Proenza Schouler’s brilliant spectacle in June at Pitti Immagine in Florence, Italy.

The party was as low-key an event as such a New York society crowd permits, with beers in icebuckets and a tire swing on the terrace (albeit a designer one by Aaron Young of Cumulus Studios!). ‘Kids’ actor Leo Fitzpatrick and artist Nate Lowman hit the decks to dj for the event, as various art, music and fashion personalities enjoyed the summer evening sipping beers and champagne, including P.S.1‘s  Tim Goossens, model Sigrid Agren, Vogue’s Hamish Bowles and up-and-coming young illustrator Aurel Schmidt.

Surely a last hurrah for Jack and Lazaro after riding a crazy wave in the past few months, culminating in the completion and launch of A#9, their reception of CFDA Accessories of the Year award, and their work with Pitti Immagine as the special guest of the womenswear pre-spring collection presentation. Congratulations guys!

Photos by Steve Eichner, Sherly Rabbani and Josephine Solimene.

Right in time for the 4th of July, A#9 curated by PROENZA SCHOULER hits the windows of Opening Ceremony in New York, with the star-spangled banner out in full force to celebrate the ‘Made in the USA’ edition. The windows of the Howard Street store in New York city feature the big ‘A’ in dashing red and blue – with an homage to the contributors featured also. As you venture inside, the Chloë Sevigny cover of A#9 jumps out from all across the store, a fitting collaboration considering Chloë herself designs a collection for Opening Ceremony each season.

images courtesy of Daria Radlinski for Opening Ceremony

Opening Ceremony, 35 Howard Street, New York 10013, USA

The Rue St Honoré window of Parisian superstore Colette is graced with the cover of A#9 this week, as the magazine hits stores worldwide.

In a special collaboration with Pitti Immagine, the largescale reproductions of Richard Burbridge’s Chloë Sevigny cover and the exclusive Proenza Schouler print by Alejandro Cardenas were flown from Florence to feature at Colette.

The prints have been accompanied by a selection of garments from Proenza Schouler’s Fall Winter 2009/10 collection, including their CFDA award-winning accessories.

An issue of A#9 could be seen poking from the pocket of Proenza Schouler’s signature PS1 leather satchel, and an Apple iPod Touch with the magazine in digital format tucked under a Proenza Schouler belt.

Three copies of A#9 have been signed by the designers themselves, Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez, exclusively for Colette. In order to get your hands on a signed copy, check out Colette’s July newsletter here, to find the quiz question and find the answer right here on the A BLOG.

A#9 is now available at Colette and other leading bookshops and retailers while stocks last. Thanks to Pitti Immagine.

Written, Directed, and Edited by Kalup Linzy

Kalup Linzy’s “Sampled and LeftOva” & “Fuck U” for Proenza Schouler

On the Occasion of Pitti W-Nº4. A Project of Fondazione Pitti Discovery. Produced by Art Production Fund.

Make up by Aidan Keopg and Bryan Campbell for MAC.

In a multidisciplinary practice that includes videos, performances and music, Linzy creates satirical narratives inspired by television soap operas, telenovelas and Hollywood melodramas. He performs, most often in drag, in a series of memorable recurring roles. The artist serves as writer, composer, director, cinematographer, editor, and actor—and, in a distinctive strategy, also voices and overdubs the dialogue of multiple characters. At once comic, raunchy and poignant, Linzy’s unique narrative music and videos fuse dramatic intensity with melodramatic irony.

Members of Art Production Fund sit with Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler at Palazzo Tournabuoni.

Dan The Scout joined an exclusive meeting of international press and guests this morning in the stunning Palazzo Tournabuoni in Florence, for the press conference of Proenza Schouler and their involvement with Pitti Immagine fashion trade fair and the launch of A MAGAZINE CURATED BY Proenza Schouler.

Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez [the designers behind Proenza Schouler] spoke about their creative world, and the powerhouse of people and talent that has come together here at Pitti, for “collaboration that creates vision without compromise”[1].

As the guest designers of Pitti Woman, Proenza Schouler will unveil their highly anticipated pre-collection event this evening at the Villa della Petraia, in a multi-format creative landscape where fashion, film, music and art collide. 

The event is orchestrated under the co-direction of Art Production Fund, the celebrated New York-based non-profit contemporary art foundation. APF have provided a powerful link to harmonious artistic resources and people in the United States, tying in the concept of ‘Made in the USA’ encapsulating Proenza’s position as the first American curators of A MAGAZINE CURATED BY, and their first collection event outside the United States at Pitti Immagine.

The event will involve a screening of two new films by Kalup Linzy, the New York based artist whose soap-operatic aesthetic is translated into a short piece featuring A Magazine #9 cover girl Chloë Sevigny and supermodel Liya Kebede. Liya also features in a display of Kalup’s photography, wearing Proenza Schouler pre-spring 2010 in a series of renaissance-style poses.

Proenza Schouler will also present a world first “unplugged” live performance by Kembra Pfahler and her fetishistic theatrical horror-rock group The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. Their controversial on-stage antics and darkly feminine goth aesthetic exemplifies the true clash of alternate worlds aligned by Lazaro and Jack, and their continuous dialogue on the concept of femininity and its representation in art and fashion.

The final component will be an art installation by Haim Steinbach, the celebrated New York artist who’s pristinely ordered consumerist installations present social commentary on consumer culture by using the literal platform of a shelf to display specific collections of common objects. Tonight he will take the CFDA award winning accessories collection of Proenza Schouler and engage them in a strategic game plan against everyday objects in the courtyard of the Villa della Petraia.

Following the press conference of Proenza Schouler @ Pitti, Dan the Scout spent a few minutes with Jack and Lazaro to discuss their experiences with A MAGAZINE CURATED BY.

On their CFDA Accessory designer of the year award, Pitti and A#9 launch all in the same week:

Lazaro Hernandez – [CFDA’s] that was on Monday, Yeah it’s amazing how this has happened all at once, it has been a crazy week, there’s been meetings and friends and family…

Jack McCullough – We’re really excited, when it rains it pours!

L – Yeah, we started the week off with a hangover, bad idea, and kind of throws off the whole thing!

On their experience with A#9:

L – We have really poured our hearts and souls into it for the past year. We loved it, it is unusual to be given a project like this and to be just told “go for it”.

J – We have been working on it really hard for a long time… we’ve called in favours from lots of friends and amazing people…

L – We really wanted to create a magazine with text, with content – something we can look back on and see where we were at that moment, what our friends were doing.

On the Americana influence:

L – We are really inspired by Donald Judd. Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, that whole post-minimalist 1970s movement, with Judd – the idea that this one guy created this whole world in Marfa [Texas, the series of buildings Judd recreated on permanent display, alongside examples of his minimalist structural art installations].

On the creative advertising in A#9:

Jack – Lazaro photographed the Swarovski campaign, he is a photographer now! [laughs]

Lazaro – Yeah we wore lots of different hats to make this magazine…

On cover girl Chloë Sevigny:

J – She is a muse, as well as a great friend. Such a distinct personal style.

L – Chloë is the kind of girl who is not afraid to take risks, she always looks fantastic and individual.

J – she stands apart from the ‘cookie-cutter’ fashions of America. Or the ‘biscotti-cutter’ style here in Florence!

On who they would like to see curate the next A#10: The three ‘R’s!

Laz – I would really like to see what Rei [Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons] would do . Also Raf [Simons].

Jack – And Rick Owens. He really has his own world, with the furniture… have you seen his house? So great.

Keep following as we bring you coverage of tonight’s PROENZA SCHOULER SPECIAL GUEST OF PITTI W event.

A MAGAZINE CURATED BY takes prime position in the prestigious galleries of Pitti Immagine, with an exciting new showcase bringing every past issue to life in digital format.

Nine iPod Touch screens constantly flip through the pages of each curator’s issue – the last screen of Proenza Schouler presenting never-before-seen content from the A#9, the new A MAGAZINE CURATED BY PROENZA SCHOULER.

The walls of the exhibit are adorned with two large format prints from the new issue – one being the cover of the magazine featuring Chloë Sevigny shot by Richard Burbridge and styled by Marie Chaix.

The adjacent wall features a black and yellow floral print canvas by Alejandro Cardenas, designed exclusively for the Proenza Schouler collection.