Here’s Why Jack McCollough And Lazaro Hernandez’s Appointment At LOEWE Is Exciting To Watch
The American designers have been announced to take over the House of LOEWE.
By Aaron Kok - published
Another week, and another round of fashion musical chairs ensues. Today, the rumour mill that’s been running amongst fashion circles has finally found some truth: Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who left their own brand Proenza Schouler in January, are taking on the mantle at LOEWE.
It’s not a surprising hire, per se, given that Jonathan Anderson only had the experience of running his own namesake label before LOEWE gave him the top creative post at the Spanish brand in 2013.
In the years after, we’ve seen how Anderson transformed the sleepy House and turned it into one of the most talked-about brands in fashion today. From anthurium flower tops to crazy crinolines, Anderson brought his own wit and humour to the house, and defined what it meant to wear LOEWE for a generation of new customers.
McCollough and Hernandez, who met as students before opening Proenza Schouler in 2022, are in many ways similar to Anderson. Both spent years honing their design skills at their own houses before a bigger fashion conglomerate took a bet on them and gave them the keys to the LOEWE ateliers. Both have a certain sense of what’s contemporary in fashion right now, and they are astute in evolving their designs as their customers change.
Here are three reasons why we think McCollough and Hernandez are a stellar fit for LOEWE.
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Craft is in their DNA
One of the exciting things about being able to work at LOEWE is the access that one gets to the many time-tested ateliers that deliver mindblowing artistry, and in this vein, McCollough and Hernandez have already shown early signs that the duo are ready to go big with craft.
At Proenza Schouler, the pair have done everything from melting ice over pigments to tie-dye velvet fabrics to painstakingly applying raffia by hand. In their new post, not only will they be able to dream up next-level craftsmanship, they’ll have a team of trained artisans who will be able to realise their visions.
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They’re in with the cool girls
Anderson has always had his eye on the next it girl—see his love of Taylor Russell, Ariana Grande and Zendaya—and he’s always used them as vehicles to transmit the coolness that comes with wearing LOEWE.
This innate ability to spot tomorrow’s cool girl is something that McCollough and Hernandez have always had. Since they opened their ultra-hip brand in New York, they count the likes of Chloë Sevigny, Bella Hadid, Hari Nef and Indya Moore as part of their gaggle of celeb fans.
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Making hit bags? They’ve got the experience
The Puzzle bag will always remain one of Anderson’s greatest hits at LOEWE. At the start of his tenure, Anderson’s Puzzle bag quickly gained cult status as celebs and shoppers alike clamoured for their own. Even today, the Puzzle bag elicits its own cult of devotees: when rumours were floating around that the House had plans to discontinue the original Puzzle in favour of the Puzzle Edge, many TikTok videos reported that fans were snapping up the original bags (identifiable by the gaps between each leather piece) from the stores.
In McCollough and Hernandez’s resume, they saw the same success as Anderson did, years before the Puzzle first arrived on the market. At Proenza Schouler, McCollough and Hernandez saw the massive success that was their PS1 satchel—characterised by its prep-cool look in various colours and skins—that was the choice bag of Hollywood stars like Leighton Meester and Dakota Fanning since its release in 2008. Shortly after, they released the PS11 bag—a crossbody sling that featured a chunkier build with metal hardware—and that saw overnight success too. Department stores were reporting waitlists as customers kept trying to get their hands on the PS11 purse. Clearly, they have a Midas touch when it comes to making bags that people want to buy.
It’s this same fervor that McCollough and Hernandez are able to stoke that will ultimately benefit LOEWE, given that the brand is a go-to for bags and accessories. We can already see the waitlists at LOEWE starting to build.