It’s been 21 years since WWD declared Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez “most likely to succeed” shortly after they showed their Parsons senior thesis collection, using fabric donated by Michael Kors, and it was picked up by Barneys New York.
And succeed they have, but not without bumps in the road, and a revolving door of investors, including Valentino Group; Andrew Rosen and John Howard; Castanea, and now Mudrick.
Two decades in, they are feeling stronger than ever, sharing that they notched strong double-digit growth year-over-year from 2021 to 2022. After putting their Paris showroom on hold during COVID-19, they will be opening back up this season and traveling to fashion week there to engage with international retailers and press. They also have plans to expand distribution in China.
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Their fall 2023 show on Saturday afternoon marks their 20th anniversary at New York Fashion Week. This collection will be a departure in that it has not been designed with a theme or looks in mind, but using a new garment-based approach.
“This is the first time we’ve treated the collection in this way, starting out with who is the woman and what is she wearing,” McCollough said during a preview at the duo’s SoHo studio, in front of an inspiration wall papered with images of inspiring women, including Chloë Sevigny, Jenny Holzer, Patti Smith, Sade and many more.
“The styling process has been interesting because I draw half the collection and Lazaro draws half the collection. I’d usually draw the jacket with the top that goes with it and the skirt. But this time we just drew separates, so there’s no preconceived notion of how it’s meant to go together. We created a fabric story and color palette so every piece works with one another. It was so freeing in a way.”
“There are a lot of collaborations within the show, you’ll see. We’re calling it ‘Portrait of a Woman.’ We’re really bringing together our community,” Hernandez said.
WWD sat down with the designers and a slew of runway images spanning their 40-plus shows to talk about how their design process has evolved (while keeping certain techniques true to the brand); the moment they almost ran out of money; and how they moved from esoteric to relatable — and feel better for it.
Jack McCollough: “This is like going through a family photo album — there’s the awkward stage, then we hit puberty…”
Lazaro Hernandez: “Kristen Stewart wore that to promote ‘Twilight: New Moon.’ That was our first tie-dye season, and then people kept wanting it, and the shirts are still one of the highest volume things we do.”
WWD: Early on, you worked a lot with the corset or bra top and the short flippy skirt silhouette.
L.H.: We’ve always made clothes for our contemporaries, and in those days we were 24 years old. To think we were doing this at 24 blows my mind sometimes…
J.M.: We didn’t know what the hell we were doing…a lot of these early collections were very rooted in travel, we were traveling for the first time as young adults, we had paychecks for the first time…
L.H.: When me made our first paycheck we went to Bora Bora, Tahiti and Hawaii.
WWD: I loved those palm tree prints, and I actually have one of those jackets. It is quilted silk, printed, with coconut buttons — and it was a splurge when I bought it but worth it.
L.H.: In the early days, we’d come from an arts school background, and the pieces were really well made, the materials were insane. It’s like wow, we sold that for that much money? We must have made pennies.
J.M.: Our margins were really bad…
WWD: The fall 2011 collection has been reconsidered in recent years in the context of cultural appropriation.
J.M.: We had gone on a road trip and ended up in New Mexico at Georgia O’Keeffe’s house, we were inspired by all the Pendleton blankets, too. We wouldn’t do anything like that now, but it’s hard to judge today by 20 years’ ago standards.
This was the show at the old Whitney Museum — we were really inspired by artist Robert Morris’ work. He does those felt wall pieces, slashed, and it kind of informed how we went into our fittings. We started with basic shapes, then cutting, and letting things fall, and letting gravity take over.
L.H.: Then there was the collection at the new Whitney, this new one coming up this season has some of that same energy…
WWD: That cold-shoulder look was so trendsetting, those pieces were everywhere.
WWD: The collections were much more lady in the beginning.
L.H.: When we started, a lot of younger designers in New York were deconstructing things, cutting up T-shirts, it was the Benjamin Cho, Imitation of Christ days.
J.M.: And we thought it was punk in a weird way to construct, because it was the antithesis of that. And we were very influenced by midcentury designers.
WWD: Those cutout and pleated metallic looks were a huge hit, and I remember the skirts carrying over a few seasons in stores. When did you start to think about that commercially?
J.M.: It took a minute to establish our codes and repeat things for people to associate them with us.
L.H:. And to develop a business head space, that happened a lot later.
J.M.: One season, we had pieces that were all crocheted in Madagascar, we sent one of our team members to oversee it and she ended up getting malaria.
L.H.: We got really good at making things so it was all about challenging ourselves. The zenith of that mindset was when we came in with a multicolored carpet pad, and we sat here with our team and said, “We want to do this.” And they had to fly all over the world and figure it out and it was $1,000 a yard, and it was this crazy beautiful piece of art you couldn’t really sell. We pushed ourselves to create these things that were beautiful and esoteric, but you lose the woman at some point.
WWD: When was the come to Jesus moment?
J.M.: For me it was after we did those two runway shows in Paris, and we came back and did a whole collection that was cotton and denim. It wasn’t my favorite collection, but it helped us flip the switch in terms of our approach.
WWD: People were not so kind about that collection.
L.H.: Americans weren’t, but that was one of the most press heavy collections we ever had in Europe.
WWD: Was it because you were losing money?
L.H.: Yeah, we were basically running out of money and we were like, “What are we going to do?” We couldn’t afford to go back to Paris. So we said, “Let’s go back to New York and what’s more American than jeans; let’s do a collection of denim.” We had pushed the bar in Paris and people were expecting feathers and embroidery and more, more, more. And the denim collection sold well and was wearable.
White Label came into the picture a while after that, but that was a good incubator of a White Label idea of going back to basics and the wearability and wardrobing.
J.M.: It helped us reset and reprogram our headspace.
WWD: When did tailoring become more important?
J.M.: Tailoring to get it right you have to have patternmakers who know what they are doing and the ones we had in house were more flou people. So we did most of our tailoring in Italy and we’d go there for fittings. But there’s something to developing anything in an outside factory versus with your own people. It’s not the same. So we brought a great patternmaker in who knew tailoring.
L.H.: The last couple seasons, especially pre-collections, our focus has been on who is our woman. Before, we were more interested in a concept, theme or idea, going to Hawaii and India…we’d go off on a creative tangent. And the woman wasn’t so much a part of it, it was more whatever grasped our attention we’d do that.
J.M.: I also think the time has changed in the broader fashion thinking. Back to the 2000s, 2010s, a lot of designers, you didn’t know from season to season what to expect. Prada, Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga was that, everyone was flipping the switch every two seconds. Now people want to see more consistency. and it’s really about the repetition to really drill into peoples’ heads that this is what the brand is about, this is what they stand for.
WWD: And a little feminism came to bear on the industry maybe, where women were no longer willing to switch their wardrobe every season.
J.M.: Totally, I think Phoebe [Philo] flipped the switch on that as well.
L.H.: I’m surprised and obviously happy that we survived the transition. When we were making those collections that were very esoteric, the business was very much about accessories, and not just accessories, the PS1 bag. It was 85 percent of our business. And we’d make retailers buy clothes to get the PS1. The PS1 is what kept the company afloat. Every “It” bag has a moment, then starts to die down. The pinch point was during that denim collection. But we were able to transition from an accessories only house to selling clothes. Accessories are still there — they are about 40 percent of the business — but we sell lots of clothes and that feels good.
WWD: Do you miss those crazy fashion days?
J.M.: I have a lot of love in my heart for those days, but we also really pushed ourselves. It’s not that we don’t now, but we repeat ideas so it’s not having to reinvent season after season.
L.H.: It’s really exciting at the beginning to win all the awards, but it feels really good now to see women in the clothes. Before, we had all these clothes we spent six months making and we’d sell one or two of them. People would love the show but then it was really hard to wear. But now we’re dressing a lot of women and people covet the clothes, there’s lines around the blocks for sample sales. We know when something is too much, we can make clothes that have the same level of passion and technicality, but it’s relatable. Before it was esoteric, now it’s relatable.
WWD: You recently cast Kendall Jenner in your spring ad campaign. How else are you engaging the younger generation?
L.H.: A lot through casting, the women we invite into our narrative. There’s interest from these girls and we’ve been opening up allowing the next generation to be part of what we do. Girls like Ella [Emhoff] are amazing and really feel on-brand. Kendall is really fun and last season, we had this sexy Latin feel, and she made a lot of sense for us.
J.M.: Our clothes have grown up as we’ve grown up but that doesn’t exclude any age group. It’s more an attitude and a spirit.
L.H.: There’s an adulthood to the clothes and there are a lot of young women who want to look more put together and intelligent. And that’s who we cater to.