← The Run-Through with Vogue
The Run-Through with Vogue
Loewe’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez On Their First Menswear Collection and the Loewe Craft Prize
00:46:18
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- [00:01]
A
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- [01:38]
B
This is the run through. I'm Nicole Phelps. Today I have Loewe Creative directors Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez with me in the studio. I've known these two for more than 20 years and I'm so excited that they joined me for the podcast. We talk about the Loewe Craft Prize, the winners of which were announced today, what they want to do long term at the brand and how they're approaching the first menswear collection of their career. Thank you for joining me. Welcome Jack.
- [02:07]
C
Welcome.
- [02:08]
B
Lesraux.
- [02:08]
D
Thanks for having us.
- [02:09]
B
You just arrived in New York City from Paris last night, so you're a little jet lagged and I thank you very much for joining. How does it feel to come back? You've been in Paris for a full year now.
- [02:22]
C
Yeah, we moved there last April, so it'll be a year next month and we haven't been back as much as we thought we were going to be back. We came back for the first time last summer in August for a bit. I mean, beautiful. The One month off thing.
- [02:35]
D
I know one of the perks of living in Europe is that one month off. I don't think we had ever had more than 10 days off really, our entire career here in New York. So that's definitely one of the perks.
- [02:45]
C
So we did August in New York, and then we came back for Christmas, and now that's it. This is our third time.
- [02:51]
B
How does it feel to become a Parisian? What is life like in Paris for you?
- [02:56]
D
I mean, I'd hardly call us Parisians. We've got a lot of work to do with our French. It's a bit of an issue. You know, everyone at the studio speaks English. You'll even be walking down the hallway and see two French people speaking to each other in English. So it's not the best place to learn the language. And, you know, we're there a big chunk of our. Of our days. So we're gonna. We told ourselves after this last show that we're gonna get a tutor. So we're gonna. We're gonna work on that. We know the basics, but we've got a lot to do.
- [03:25]
B
Do you talk to, you know, your baristas in French when you go to the cafe?
- [03:30]
C
We try. And then they respond in English.
- [03:32]
B
That happens to me when I'm in Paris, too.
- [03:33]
D
I know. No matter how good your French is, they catch that accent and they just switch over to English.
- [03:38]
C
Yeah.
- [03:39]
B
What makes you feel like you are making yourselves at home? There are.
- [03:44]
C
I think we finally. It took us six months to find a place to live. We had, like, three sublets. We were. Yeah, three sublets in the course of six months. Like two months each. We couldn't find the right place. We wanted, like, a really old Parisian sort of place, like really classic moldings and the whole thing. But we wanted, like, brand new bathrooms and brand new kitchen, like, all the modern things we're used to. So to find that balance was difficult. And we finally found one in November. We moved in. So. And then our stuff finally arrived. All our. Because we moved out of our house in Brooklyn and brought all our stuff with us. So our stuff finally arrived. So then it feels like home.
- [04:23]
D
I think it started feeling more like home once we, like, got all our things, all our books and our linens and our.
- [04:28]
C
The bed.
- [04:30]
D
Yeah.
- [04:30]
B
Are you Left bank or Right Bank?
- [04:32]
D
We're Left Bank.
- [04:33]
C
Yeah.
- [04:33]
D
We're in Rue de Luniversite, like right on the border of 6th and 7th,
- [04:37]
C
next to Rue de Bac.
- [04:38]
D
Yeah, it's great. It's a lovely neighborhood. It's very central, but it's also very quiet. And I think after living here since we were 18 years old and, you know, dealing with the chaos of New York City, it's nice to be somewhere a bit quiet. Feels like a big shift.
- [04:53]
C
And we could also walk to work. The office is across on the Right bank. So we, you know, we walk over the river through the Tuileries, like, through Place Vendome, usually. And then our office is right next to the Opera. It takes us about half an hour to walk there. So when the weather's nice, we'll walk home at night, decompress. It's kind of lovely. And then you realize you're in Paris, because sometimes you forget, like, what we do is, like, you know. Yeah, it's a different company, but what we do is so kind of the same as we've always done. We have a team or in fittings all day, we're in meetings. Sometimes you forget you're in Paris. It just. Life is just, you know, you're in an office or a studio, and then you, like, leave after work and you cross the river and you're like, oh, yeah.
- [05:34]
D
I think that's when it really kicks in. When we leave the studio at night and walk home and you're, like, in the tooleries, walking over the river. That's when it really sets in. Like, you know, we're not in New York anymore.
- [05:45]
B
So let's talk about what you're doing. You have done two shows at Loewe now, and my observations as a person who has watched many years of your shows prior to you getting this creative director's jobs at Loewe is you're having, like, a lot of fun, right? The Cosima Van Bonen sculptures and the accessories she helped you with this season and last season, you know, just launching straight out with these incredible color palette and, you know, the floor to match at the show venue.
- [06:17]
C
Yellow's a thing.
- [06:18]
B
Yes. You're having fun, right?
- [06:20]
D
Absolutely.
- [06:21]
C
Yeah.
- [06:21]
D
I mean, I think it's been really lovely just diving into a new world and just having this opportunity to, like, kind of start from scratch in a way. We'd been building Proenza over the last 20 years, and, you know, after 20 years, you're kind of tied into a certain aesthetic. And, you know, no matter where we go and where we're designing, our personal kind of things are gonna come through. They're gonna come out no matter what we do. But we really made a concerted effort to make a big shift in what we do. And this has just been a nice opportunity to do that with.
- [06:56]
B
Did you approach the job thinking we're gonna bring our American ness to Loewe?
- [07:02]
C
It was definitely a thought we had. Yeah. I don't know. For us, I guess. So that's something.
- [07:09]
D
I think it's just something that's so deeply embedded in who we are that is just naturally gonna come through whether we try and reject it or not. You know, we love sportswear. Our first show is very much about sportswear and taking archetypes and a little bit of a sense of American dress, but kind of filtering it through the lens of craft.
- [07:29]
C
We thought it would be interesting to inject like, a spirit of. Of reality into Loewe. I think Loewe is known for its conceptual sort of edge and its sort of far out there fashion, which we know we're obsessed with and we love. But we thought it was kind of interesting to definitely explore that more conceptual side of things, but then balance it with something that felt quite ordinary and archetypical. And the language of sportswear was something that we're obsessed with and that we feel really comfortable with. And the idea was kind of to take those codes of American sports were like the T shirt, the jean, the bomber jacket, these sort of, like, you know, items, and then put them through the filter of high craft and through the. And specifically through, like, leather craft. So a lot of those pieces became leather pieces made with this extraordinary technique and stuff we've never been able to make in our previous life. So, yeah, it was like kind of just reinterpreting those codes. And we love the idea of, like, not being shy of our roots. That felt really important to us to sort of celebrate that.
- [08:33]
B
And this season for fall 2026, there's a real tech element, like a lot of experimenting with new materials.
- [08:40]
D
Totally. I mean, that's been something that we've always been interested in, and I think we explored it a lot in our earlier career. And, you know, it's something we're still interested in today. Like, what is craft to us? What is technique? How do we push it forward? We're very interested in this idea of, like, the hand and the machine to create these more modern crafts. And that was a big push. I think, for this last show, we were playing with this idea of inflatables. How do you build silhouette, but without adding extra weight to it? Nothing felt more light than air to us. So we started playing with this idea of inflatables to create shape and silhouette, or the latex was interesting in Terms of taking an ordinary garment like a slip dress, and how do we filter that through the lens of craft, but kind of introduce modern technologies into the mix as well.
- [09:33]
C
So, and for us, it's about defining craft. Like, there's this idea of craft is defined as the art of making. And I think sometimes this idea of craft can become a bit quaint or old fashioned, like, you know, crochet or kind of things that feel just more kind of humble and old school. And there's a beauty in that for sure. But, you know, there's also contemporary craft and using the resources that are available to us today through technology to make things. And then for us, like, I don't know, it was really interesting to use to make things today that we couldn't make yesterday because the technology didn't exist yesterday. So all that stuff that we. A lot of the stuff we put on the Runway this season was stuff that was. Was techniques that we developed that didn't exist, you know, before we sort of did them. Like a lot of that, like latex molding stuff, some of that inflatable stuff had never kind of been done before. Some of the leather techniques, it's about pushing craft forward and bringing it to a kind of really contemporary place.
- [10:35]
D
I mean, I think on a big picture level, we were really interested in this idea of joy, something that felt quite joyful and almost playful. And that was a lot of our early conversations at the beginning of the season that kind of led us to toys, and toys obviously feel very playful. And so how do we kind of, you know, take some of these techniques and twist it through the lens of this toy kind of playful spirit, which led us to the inflatables or, you know, the molded latex techniques.
- [11:07]
C
When we first started at Loewe, when we got the job, we were expecting like this kind of really scary. You know, we had never worked in France before and it's an LVMH brand. And you think about, you think of it this kind of big, corporate, kind of scary place with like, really serious fashion people. And when we got there, it's just such a joyful place. Loewe is not one of these brands. It's not like a scary fashion brand that's really serious and takes itself super seriously. And that was so refreshing to us to enter that space where everything was like, light and fun. And it's really headquartered in Madrid and everyone there is so warm. Like everyone hugs you and kisses you in the cheeks and invites you over to their house for dinner. And there's like this family kind of Spanish feeling, and there's a sense of joy and there's like a playfulness and experimentation and that really permeates every aspect of the company culture.
- [11:57]
B
We are recording this a few weeks in advance, but this episode is going to be airing the day that the winners of the Loewe Craft Prize are being announced in Singapore. So we should dive into what the Loewe Craft Prize is for the listeners who don't know.
- [12:14]
C
Yeah. Well, the Loewe Craft Prize is run by the Loewe foundation and that's like an important thing to kind of understand. There's Loewe Fashion House, which is one side, and there's a Loewe foundation on the other side, which is a not for profit. The craft prize stems from the foundation side, so not related to the brand side. So I don't think people understand that. I didn't before. I thought it was just part of the brand. It's not. The prize has been around since 2016. This is the 10th year anniversary, basically.
- [12:42]
B
I understand there were over 5,000 applicants and the pool of applicants has been cut down to 30.
- [12:50]
C
Yes.
- [12:51]
B
So you, along with other members of the jury, will be in Singapore analyzing this work.
- [12:57]
D
Yes.
- [12:58]
B
You know, what are you going to be looking for?
- [13:00]
C
Well, it's important to sort of first note that there's like an expert panel that we're not a part of that is sort of hired by the foundation and there's these just experts in the world of craft and design and art. There's like this amazing group of people who have a really. They're kind of the unsung heroes of this entire thing because they, they look at 5,000 entries in detail and they whittle that down to 30. We have the easy job later on where we look at the 30 and sort of with the jury pick the winner and the two runner ups. But.
- [13:33]
D
Yeah, yeah, but the expert panel is one that requires like, you know, technical knowledge of these fields and they're judging these applicants based on pictures and writing and they don't get to see the actual works in person until the selection's whittled down to this 30, which is crazy. That's done over Christmas. They've got over 5,000 submissions on their holiday, over their holiday. And these are people who are experts at their field and with a deep understanding of craft. So our hats really go off to them. They put in so much work to narrow it down to that 30. So then come leading up to Singapore that we'll be on the jury Panel, and then we'll deliberate and look at these 30 submissions, see the works in person, get to know the artists themselves and pick a winner.
- [14:25]
C
We've done the homework on the 30 people already. We haven't seen the pieces in person yet. We'll see them for the first time in Singapore, but obviously we know who the 30 are now.
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B
What are your first impressions, would you say?
- [14:36]
C
I think it's very varied. There's so many different kinds of crafts being explored during this edition. It's really interesting. Some of the glass pieces are super interesting that we find this time. There's a lot of leather work, which is also kind of new and super interesting. So, yeah, it's quite varied.
- [14:54]
D
We've been on some panels in the past judging fashion designers, and you're comparing the same medium across multiple designers. This is quite different in that everyone's field is completely different. It's everything from ceramics to leather work, weaving. So everyone's personal work is deeply personal and quite different from one another. So it's going to be tricky to judge one another that you're not comparing apples to apples.
- [15:20]
C
Maybe your glass blowing pass can come in handy.
- [15:24]
B
I didn't know about this.
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C
Jack was a glassblowing major.
- [15:27]
D
I did glassblow for a minute at Parsons. No, in San Francisco before I transferred to Parsons. His glassblowing and painting.
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B
This is something new I'm learning about you.
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C
He's got the expertise in the glass blowing.
- [15:38]
D
I mean, I never became an expert. These people are experts.
- [15:42]
C
But in terms of what we're looking for, we're looking for something that feels deeply personal to that person, but also kind of universal and something that transcends the personal realm and feels kind of. Yeah. Universal and appeals to a broader group of people and says something true about the world that we live in, yet deeply personal in terms of its cultural point of view, its history, and how it takes that specific craft and moves it forward and how they, you know, where they learn their craft. Because it's really about, you know, a tradition of learning from previous generations and pushing it forward. And that's something that's really interesting about the craft prize. It's a lot of these people are taking crafts that would, you know, maybe have been forgotten or lost and bringing them to the modern world and reinterpreting them and just exposing this skill set to a new audience. And that's so important for this craft to not be forgotten or lost. And for us as designers, it's so inspiring on a personal level, for us, seeing this stuff as so inspiring and such a rich source of inspiration. We're interested in maybe collaborating with some of these people and seeing how they can even function in our universe. And maybe they can make some stuff for the brand side. And there's a lot of, like, interesting parallels we can draw or collaborations.
- [17:08]
D
I mean, I think what's so beautiful about craft is it really teaches you to slow down. I mean, the amount of time these artists put into their work, it's incredible. And us working in fashion at the speed and the rate we've got to output, just kind of meeting these people and seeing their work and their process and how long it takes to create these things is. Is really magical to us. Just like the. It's like really the art of slowing down in many ways.
- [17:34]
C
And in some ways, it's also the soul of Loewe. It makes so much sense. Like, Loewe started as this guy, Enrique Loewe came from Germany, 1846. Loewe is the second oldest luxury fashion house in the world, which most people don't know. It's 180 years old this year, which is quite insane. This German guy, Enrique Loewe, came over to Spain and he found all these leather craftspeople. They were all independent from each other, working independently and making little things like little trinkets, little wallets, little bags, just leather things. And he brought them all under one umbrella and called it Loewe. So it was just from the beginning, this sort of coalition, a group of craftspeople coming together and sort of been organized as one unit under the. Under the. Yeah, the moniker Loewe. So, yeah, it's like in the blood and the roots of this company to celebrate craft. We're so happy to be a part of this thing.
- [18:35]
B
Can you go into more detail about the workshops in Madrid? You know, you've been at Loewe now for going on a year. What have you observed there? Is there, you know, anything that really stands out to you about the kind of handwork they're doing?
- [18:50]
D
I mean, it's just incredible, their capabilities. When we started, we didn't want to start in Paris. We wanted to start in Madrid and meet the people there and go to the factories and meet all the craftspeople, and it just blew us away. What's possible. I mean, they're kind of waiting for us to kind of feed them the ideas, but they're just ready to go. And they've got all these incredible techniques. And, you know, they're really well known for their intarsia leather, which is like A inlaid kind of leather, and they could do very intricate with this. It's like leather marquetry, essentially. A lot of those skiving techniques on our show. So leather skiving is essentially you're taking layers of leather, overlapping it on top of one another, and then you're kind of putting it through the skiving machine and shaving it down and exposing layers. A lot of people thought those polo dresses we had done were knitwear, but it's all just skived leather, or taking,
- [19:43]
C
like, you know, say, a thousand leather skins all stacked on top of each other. And then I'm kind of slicing it into a thin cross section of, like, you know, a couple of millimeters wide.
- [19:55]
D
It's almost like creating a plywood, but through leather and then doing a cross section to create this kind of new textile.
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C
But every skin's a different color, so it creates this sort of stripe idea. But it's all just like, stacks and stacks and stacks of leather. It's so beautiful.
- [20:08]
D
So it's just blown us away. I mean, all the bags are developed and produced in Madrid, and then we've got a leather atelier in Barcelona that just does leather clothes, and they're the ones that did the molded leather jackets. They opened the show our first season, and we love this idea of fetish finish. John McCracken, one of the west coast minimalists, kind of coined that phrase, but it's something we're very interested in. Like, how can you craft something to such a level that you almost erase the hand? That was an interesting concept to us, and that's what led us to that technique with those molded jackets. I mean, they looked seamless. They weren't. But you're basically skiving leather so thin and then overlapping it and hand gluing it and then hand spraying it afterwards to create this almost fetish finish where the hand almost dissolves. Even though it's this thing that's been meticulously crafted by the hand, that, to us, is an interesting idea of craft.
- [21:05]
C
And that's what's cool about working at Loewe. Sometimes we don't know how to do something or if it's even technically possible. So it's just ideas where we want to create a jacket that's almost. It looks like it's been molded by a hat maker. So there's no seams. All the forms are, like, round, and the shape is sort of the seaming and the shaping is invisible. So it feels like one piece that comes out of some machine looking like that. Like, how do you do that. And so we kind of challenge them and they create techniques through their know how and experience to sort of execute the ideas that we might have. Sometimes we have more specific ideas that involves like a specific technique we know or understand. But their capabilities and their know how are so much more profound than ours. We just sort of give them ideas. It's very collaborative in that way. We couldn't do it without them.
- [21:53]
D
I've also just been so blown away by how open they are to experimentation and for us to like push the boundaries and explore new techniques. And they really celebrate creativity and innovation there. It's not pushed away, it's embraced. And it's just so nice to be working at a company that like, that celebrates this kind of thing. I think it's quite rare these days, so it's been very fulfilling and people
- [22:21]
C
expect that from Loewe, which is great. They want newness. They want something that feels radically new. For us, it's sign us up.
- [22:28]
D
Music to our ears.
- [22:29]
C
Yeah.
- [22:34]
B
Okay, we're going to take a quick break. Comprehensive, witty, speculative, critical, insightful, profound, wide ranging. Hopefully doesn't take itself too, too seriously.
- [22:54]
D
I'm David Remnick, and each week on
- [22:56]
C
the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world.
- [23:02]
D
I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [23:07]
B
Thoughtful, exquisite. Just, you know, real.
- [23:16]
E
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- [23:54]
A
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- [24:29]
B
Another thing that's new for you is menswear.
- [24:32]
D
Yes.
- [24:32]
C
Yeah.
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B
So what has that been like, sort of deciding what your menswear is gonna look like?
- [24:38]
D
Yeah. We've got our first men's only show coming up in June, so we're already in the thick of that. You know, I think we were, like, not nervous, but we were. We were just kind of curious how it was gonna all go down. Cause we'd never done it before. We were doing women's wear our whole career. We've never dabbled in men's. But ultimately, I think it felt very much like the same process and the same approach that we approach our women's with. I mean, especially this last show where men's was integrated into women's. We want to feel like one world sometimes. We weren't even looking at the heads, whether it was a boy or a girl wearing the garment. And it was really just, how does this look and this piece sit in with the storytelling that we're trying to accomplish? So in some ways, it felt very natural. I mean, you're still working on a body and building clothes, and it's silhouette and it's composition and materiality. It's not so far off from what we've been doing. So we're excited to see kind of how it evolves and how we explore it in new ways.
- [25:42]
C
It's a bit more personal, I think. When you're designing women's wear, obviously we're not women, so you're projecting and kind of fantasizing a little bit about, like, oh, who she is and would she wear this? Or it's sort of. It's a projection, and it's sort of like one layer removed. As men designing menswear, it's much more personal. Like, we could try on the clothes, put them on, see how it feels, move in them. There's a layer of the personal in the men's approach that maybe doesn't exist in the women's. And I'm not sure that's better or worse, but it is what it is.
- [26:18]
B
Well, I was very impressed that it's sort of interchangeability.
- [26:21]
A
Right.
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B
There was a lot of overlap between the men's and the women's shapes.
- [26:25]
C
That's like the world we live in. There's.
- [26:27]
D
My parents didn't know who the boys
- [26:28]
C
were and who the girls were.
- [26:30]
D
I mean, not that they're fashion people, but they're like, oh, is that a boy or a girl?
- [26:33]
C
It's not like we're putting Men's in skirts or men's in dresses. Like that's fine and cool for something, you know, but that's not what we do. The boys felt kind of boy, and the girls felt sort of feminine. So they were different. But we wanted it all to kind of feel the same and kind of all blend into one another, you know, Next show is different. Cause it's just men's only. So it'll be.
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B
You're not gonna throw in a few women?
- [26:56]
C
As of now, no, but good idea. Maybe.
- [26:59]
D
I don't know. With the women's too, I think there's at times this level of abstraction and there's these dresses that sometimes aren't rooted in anything. So it's a bit of a different approach. The menswear, at least the menswear we're interested in is usually rooted in an archetype or a sartorial aspect to it. So it comes from a different place. I'd say it comes down more to the little proportion shifts that really tweaks menswear in one direction or the other. If you're putting a suit together, it's all about is this sleeve length. Women's too, but especially with men's, where the button's sitting, how long the jacket is. That's what kind of makes it this or that or.
- [27:42]
C
The palette of things to work from is smaller in men's. Like, we take away dresses and skirts from the equation, which we.
- [27:49]
D
Less categories.
- [27:50]
C
There's less things you can work with. And dresses tend to be more abstract. Like a jacket, hat, you have two arms. There's like a thing. You know, there's archetypes of pants and coats and jackets. I think a dress can be a little more of an abstract form. And that doesn't exist so much in. In the men's space. So it's. It's a narrower set of archetypes to work from. But in that maybe you go a little bit deeper. It's less things, but maybe a little deeper into them.
- [28:21]
B
Do you feel that you're making clothes for yourselves? Like, are you trying to make a Loewe wardrobe for Jack and Lazarus?
- [28:27]
D
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I'd say the shows in our pre collections are slightly different approach. With our pre collections, we're really trying to wardrobe build for both men and women. It's more about the everyday. I think with a show, it's a bit more about storytelling. It can be a little more fantasy at times. Whereas the pre collections are maybe a little more rooted in reality. But yeah, I Mean, we should want a good chunk of these things, and if we don't, we should know people who do.
- [28:58]
C
Yeah, I think a show is like a. I don't know, some people use their shows as a place to put product in, and that's great, and people love that. And then some shows, I think our shows are like that a little bit, where it's like a playground for experimentation and play, and we experiment. And I think then the pre collection, usually the Pre collection afterwards, we take that stuff that we played with and then sort of boil it down to its most efficient and wearable and usable form. So I think the true, true, true product comes sometimes the season afterwards or sometimes the season before, like the pre collection before. So, yeah, I think that's the place of where the most real stuff lives. And the shows are just, like, fun and playful and like a place of experimentation, putting on a show. It's a form of theater in some ways, a show. We come from that, you know, from that school of where shows are a form of theater. It's entertained in some ways.
- [29:58]
B
Well, speaking of school, all the way back in 2005, not long after you graduated, you told New York Magazine, we always fight a lot before the show.
- [30:07]
C
Did we say that?
- [30:09]
B
Do you still?
- [30:09]
C
I think those were the days we were trying to figure out how we work together still. I think 20 years later, we figured it out. We don't fight that much.
- [30:15]
D
No, we don't fight that much. Sometimes a little passive aggression here and there, but no, we don't. I mean, we've been working together for so long, and there's such a shorthand. Oftentimes we don't even have to say something to one another for us to kind of be aligned. I think the challenge, since we started at Loewe, has been getting to know the team. I mean, back at Proenza, we designed the whole shows ourselves. We'd go up to the Berkshires and I'd sketch half the show, Lazarus would sketch the other half. And it was really just the two of us when it came to the show collections. Now it's a different approach, and we've got a huge group of incredibly talented designers, and our job now is to guide them and steer them. And I think it takes a minute to build that shorthand with new people. I mean, it takes many, many seasons to kind of get to know one another and for them to understand what. And for us to understand their creative process and how they work. I mean, between the two of us, like, things are going good and you Know, in terms of the team, we're just still getting to know them and we're still building the team.
- [31:28]
C
But between us, we're still figuring out how to, like, work together in this new environment. Like in our old job, we kind of had been there for so long and we knew the system so well that we were really comfortable separating. Like, we wouldn't work together a lot at Pro Inset back in the day.
- [31:43]
D
Yeah. Outside of the shows, we don't really work together.
- [31:46]
C
Like, he would do a pre collection one season, I could do another one. He would work on a bag, I would work in a shoot. Like, we would sort of have, like our different projects and we would sort of overlap at times, but really we had our own sort of little layers and teams.
- [31:58]
D
Yeah. We really tried to divide and conquer.
- [32:00]
C
Yeah. Because it was such a small team, we had to.
- [32:02]
D
I think because we're just kind of building this. We're still trying to fine tune what it is that we wanna say. I think we're, you know, we're almost every meeting together now because we need to be aligned as to what the direction is. So we're spending a lot of time
- [32:20]
C
together,
- [32:22]
D
but we're used to it.
- [32:24]
B
I wanna think about the big picture. Fashion in the big picture now. In September, last September, when you debuted, we made a lot of. Hey, about, you know, it's the big reshuffle. You were among a group of like 12 or 15, you know, houses that changed over.
- [32:40]
C
That's crazy when you think back to that. That was unprecedented.
- [32:44]
B
Yes, I think it was.
- [32:45]
D
I think it was really just a domino effect. Three creative directors were leaving their roles, which left three open positions. So three new people came in, which left three other open roles. And it just created this. This domino effect. But it was wild. Everyone just didn't like it before.
- [33:01]
C
I feel like.
- [33:02]
B
Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, two seasons in what. What do you see when you look around? You know, obviously you're in the whirlwind too, so you have a different perspective.
- [33:11]
C
Yeah, I think there'll be some. I don't know. I don't know if it's a word to say it, but there'll be some winners and some losers. I think there's some people that really where it makes a lot of sense and then some people where it's not making so much sense. And maybe it just takes a minute for everyone to sort of find their footing.
- [33:27]
D
I think people also expect these designers, these creative directors to, like, come out of the gate right from the beginning with A very solid, very clear direction. And I think what people don't realize is it takes time to build a world. It doesn't happen overnight. I mean, so I think it's very interesting. Many of us are figuring it out still.
- [33:46]
C
I think it's really interesting to see everyone, sort of everyone has. What you realize is that designers have a hand, and I think this whole reshuffle has made that so apparent to me. Everyone has, like, their hand and their point of view, and everyone's coming into these new houses but then attacking that brand's codes through their hand. And I think the most successful ones feel like a really seamless sort of blend between their personal point of view and the house codes. And, like, I mean, that's what we were saying the whole time during our debut season.
- [34:22]
D
Yeah. Like, if this could feel so Loewe, but also so Jack and Lazaro, I feel like that would be. I mean, that's what we wanted people to say, and we heard it from a lot of people. That's kind of what we were after in many ways.
- [34:36]
C
Yeah. So that's why the American thing and the sportswear thing was so important to us. We didn't want to divorce our personal identity or our roots. There was that one time we went to Paris, we did a few shows, and it was very kind of French. And we look back at that, we're like, you know, we should have just been ourselves. Like, it's so cool to just kind of. I mean, it's so American. But be proud of who you are and all that stuff. But just be honest with who you are and your point of view. And I think that maybe that takes a little bit of maturity and experience. But we wanted to just kind of be really authentic to who we are, not hide anything about ourselves, like, as creatives, then try to attack this sort of, like, iconic brand's history through our very personal lens. And that was really the simple approach to it and sort of imbue a sense of Spanishness to the house, because I think that's an important element. Most people forget that Loewe is like a. You know, it's not only the second oldest luxury fashion brand in the world, but it's very much a Spanish house. Like, most of the companies actually based in Madrid, and there's such a sense of pride in Spain about Loewe, and you go into the archives, and there's all this, like, Spanish history, and, like, they used to outfit the royal family, and it's, like, so Spanish. So we wanted to kind of Imbue, bring back to the. To sort of the foreground, this idea of Spanishness. It's such a rich culture to sort of pull from and be inspired by. So we also didn't want to sort of hide that. We wanted to celebrate that.
- [36:08]
D
And the Spanishness we want to tap into weren't these, like, kind of cliche ideas of what Spain is, like a flamenco and bullfighting or whatever it might be? It's for us a feeling. It's a. I mean, we got there and we've spent a lot of time in Spain prior to this. Like, there's like a passion and a ferocity and a warmth and you get there and everyone hugs you and there's like. It reminds me a lot of Lazarus family, actually. There's just this, like. There's just this warmth and a bit fieriness at times. And I think that's really what we want to tap into, that kind of feeling of Spanishness, more abstract feeling of Spanishness.
- [36:44]
C
My grandparents were Spanish, so I know that world pretty well. And yeah, it's just like an attitude. They love dancing and food and celebration. And life is more important than work. There's very much a work life balance there. There's just like this sort of love of life, a zest for life, I guess that warmth was really sort of intoxicating to us and we wanted to imbue. That's where all the color came from.
- [37:11]
D
And we really like all the imagery we've been doing and the teaser we put out even before our first show, we really wanted it to capture that feeling we're describing.
- [37:20]
C
Just a vibe.
- [37:24]
B
We're going to take a quick break. Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. And we're the hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV and awards lovers. And just because the Oscars are done for now doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood, interviews with today's brightest stars, and so much more. Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts,
- [38:07]
A
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- [38:44]
B
In the profile Vogue did last year, I think it was.
- [38:48]
D
God, that feels like ages ago.
- [38:50]
C
Yeah.
- [38:51]
B
Sally Singer said that the job of a creative director today is finding ways for people to interact with your brand, even when they're not buying anything.
- [38:59]
C
Yeah. I think in today's world, the attention economy, I think that's really important. I think we have to communicate with the public 24 7. I think with social media being what it is and communications being what it is, I think it's important to sort of, you know, be present all the time in some way or another, which is why we're having four shows to keep that pace up. You know, it's.
- [39:24]
B
It's why you're here in New York, reconnecting with your first fans.
- [39:27]
D
Exactly.
- [39:28]
C
Yeah.
- [39:28]
D
Yeah.
- [39:29]
C
Bergdorf gave us all their windows now for the launch of the first collection. So we're here celebrating that with them.
- [39:36]
D
I think the fashion customer feels like they kind of have everything they need. So for them to want to get something from a brand, it's got to be more than just a beautiful piece that brings out emotion on some level. It's got to be a world and a culture behind it that they feel like they can tap into. It's more than just the clothes. It's a. It's a bigger story.
- [40:01]
C
Yeah. Fashion's just not about the clothes or the bags anymore. It's like fashion has become like a really important tenant of popular culture. It's like Hollywood or it's like theater or ballet. It's just another sort of facet of that gem of culture. And I think people look at fashion for entertainment now and. And it's connected to Hollywood and music, and it's just like this big cultural melting pot. And fashions just sort of have. It's sort of blended seamlessly into. Into all those other disciplines or art forms. So, yeah, I think it's just 24 7.
- [40:42]
B
Not to put too much pressure on you, I'm curious about your big picture plans for Loewe. When you forecast, you know, a year from now or three years from now, what are your. What are your dreams for yourselves at the brand?
- [40:54]
D
I mean, we've never been people to look too far ahead. We're like very much people in the moment. I mean, obviously, you've got to think ahead and imagine how you see this brand being built. At the same time, it can be a bit daunting to look that far ahead. So we can't predict what the future is going to be. In three years. Especially this world we're living in today, it feels like things are just constantly changing. You're wasting your time if you're going to try and make those predictions. So it's more about being reactionary in the moment and being able to pivot when you need to and continuing to build on the story. I mean, we're not interested in flip flopping on ideas season after season. We really want to build a world. We've been working really hard to keep that consistency. And I think that's important as we move forward into the future, you know?
- [41:45]
C
Yeah, there's no big sort of master. We've never had a big. People always ask us that.
- [41:49]
D
I think if you have a master plan, you're setting yourself up for fun, for disappointment.
- [41:54]
C
Yeah. I mean, you could have said five years ago, what's your big master plan at Proenza?
- [41:59]
D
Who knew we'd be living in Paris five years later? I mean, the world throws at you all sorts of surprises. So we're just really about thinking and living and dreaming in the moment.
- [42:10]
C
We're working on spring 27. Is that right? 27.
- [42:15]
D
Spring 27. Yes. We started that last week.
- [42:18]
C
Yeah.
- [42:18]
D
And so that's as far ahead as we can think.
- [42:21]
C
That's already a year and something ahead.
- [42:23]
B
Let's throw it back. This is fairly well established fashion lore, but we've never told the story on the podcast before about the infamous plane ride.
- [42:34]
C
Oh, my God.
- [42:35]
B
Where you met our illustrious editor, Anna Wintour.
- [42:38]
C
Oh, God, that story. I feel like I've said this story so many times in my life.
- [42:43]
E
It is Vogue, so I've heard it
- [42:45]
D
a lot of times. It's great.
- [42:47]
C
This story, this is back in 1964. It was a long time ago. I was in Miami on. It was back in the day when your parents. That's how long ago this was when your parents could take you to the gate itself.
- [43:02]
D
You were a sophomore.
- [43:03]
C
I was a sophomore. I was a sophomore or a freshman at Parsons. And my mom, you know, took me. It was like spring break or something. I went back to Miami to see my family. And then on the way back to New York to start school again, my mom took me to the gate and we were just waiting for the plane to board and Anna Wintour kind of comes through and they call first class, business class, whatever. And I see her walk in front of me and I get on the plane and I tell my mom, oh my God, Mom. That's Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue. And my mom is so Ignorant to fashion or any of that. That's not her world. She's like, oh, you should go talk to her. I was like, no, her reputation. It's not that I can't just go up to her and I'm like, in dua. She's like, ask her for a job. Don't you want an internship this summer? You should ask her for an internship. I'm sure she can get you one if you wanted one. I was like, no, I'm not talking to her. And then she sat me down and gave me a mom talk. She's like, listen, you're just a kid from Miami. You want nothing, but you just want. You're offering your. It was free back in the day. Insurance didn't make a dollar. You're offering free labor to someone who they'd be so lucky to have you. She gave me this whole pep talk, and she promised me, you'll talk to her on the plane. This is your opportunity. Grab the future by the horns. Very mom pep talk. I was like, okay. And I got on the plane, and I walk by her because you have to go through the front. I see where she's sitting, and I clock it. And I'm sat literally in the last row in the back of the plane by the bathrooms. I'm trying to muster the courage. I had two hours to figure it out. And finally, I don't know, I wrote a note on a napkin. I had a little napkin from my water or something. I think it had a crayon or a marker, had something random. And I wrote a little note on a napkin and just said, I'm sitting in the back, a student of Parsons. I really would love an internship this summer. I really want to get my foot into the door of fashion. I don't understand it. I don't know how to start. You know, could you help me out? Like, all I wanted to do is, like, work for free for someone. If you would be open to pointing me in the right direction, I would, you know, appreciate that. So I went up to. So I, like, sneaked. I pulled back the curtain of business class, and I go to the front. She's there with, you know, with her sunglasses on. And I couldn't tell if she was awake or sleeping or what. She was just kind of.
- [45:32]
D
Didn't you tap her on the shoulder?
- [45:33]
C
So then I tapped her on the shoulder, and she did not move.
- [45:37]
D
I was like, she's either sleeping or ignoring.
- [45:39]
C
I was like, what am I doing? And so, like, I was bold and, like, I tapped her A little bit harder. Like, really hard on her shoulder. And she did not move. So I was like, oh, God. She's, like, totally ignoring me. And I lifted up her. So bold. I lifted up her glass of water and put the napkin underneath her glass of water, and I just left. And I sat back down at the back of the plane. I was like, you know, I tried. I mean, whatever. Like, you know, I called my mom when I landed. I'm like, I did it. And, like, I gave her, like, a note. I'm sure she threw it away. She's like, well, at least you tried. It's good practice. Like, you know, courage is great. And, like, I think two weeks later, I get a call from Michael Kors actually saying that Anna had given this note from this, like, ballsy kid. And she gave the note to Michael, if you want an intern, I recommend this kid. He seems like he's courageous or whatever.
- [46:37]
B
Confidence to spare.
- [46:38]
C
Yeah, I guess so. And Michael called me into his office, and he gave me my first internship. And that's how I started. And then I think during the first show of that season when I was an intern, he pulled me to the front of the audience and introduced me to Anna. Was like, this is the kid that. Whatever. And she was like, so cool. She was so sweet. She's like, I'm happy that worked out for you. And then four years later, Jack and I started our company, and people had been hearing about Pro Wenza Schooler, and we had kind of like the Windsor Daily cover. We had one designer of the year. We were having, like, a little, you know, it was like our beginnings. And that's right.
- [47:18]
D
She called us.
- [47:18]
C
She called us into her office.
- [47:19]
D
Just. Just a coordinate way to bring our senior. This is before cfda. I mean, we'd just finished our senior thesis.
- [47:26]
C
It was her senior.
- [47:27]
D
It was her school collection, and Barney's had just picked it up. So we just started the brand. And Anna called us in. She heard about the brand. She said, can you bring up the collections? We, you know, hacked it in to a Lincoln Town Car and then put a bunch of clothes on racks, rolled it in. And I think it was at that moment that she realized that you were the one who passed the note to her that she got the internship.
- [47:53]
C
We had locked eyes. And she was like, are you. I was like, I am.
- [47:57]
D
It was the most. One of the more stressful meetings we've done in our lives. The whole collection was black, for starters, which is Anna's worst nightmare. That was her first comment, how that it was all black. But, you know, she's been a huge supporter ever since we started, and we have so much love for her. She's been such a huge supporter of so many young talents. It's incredible, and you don't see it often from a lot of people. So we have so much admiration and appreciation, respect for her.
- [48:26]
B
On that note, when young designers come to you for advice, what do you say?
- [48:32]
C
That you really have to believe in what you're doing at the end?
- [48:34]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think you have to have a really clear vision of what you want to do, more so now than ever, I think. There's so many voices out there, and if you don't have a clear vision that's different from everyone else's vision, you're not gonna stand out and people aren't gonna appreciate what you're doing. And you've gotta be willing to roll up your sleeves and really put in the hard work. I mean, it's full on and it's relentless and it doesn't stop. It's season after season after season. So I think you truly have to love what you do or. Or it's not the right career path for you.
- [49:09]
C
You have to have a clear point of view. I think when we started, there was so many. Like, when you look back at Vogue Runway from like 2005 or whatever, there's so. Yeah, Style, knock, stop.
- [49:20]
D
I remember the list when we started was so small. Scroll the list. It was like 50 designers total across four cities. Now you scroll the list and it's just this endless scroll of designers.
- [49:33]
C
So there was less noise when we started. It was kind of easier to break through. And I think now there's just so much competition and so much noise in social media and whatnot. I think you have to have a really original and distinct point of view to break through the clutter and the noise and be noticed. It's a lot harder today.
- [49:53]
B
Thank you both. It's great to talk to you.
- [49:56]
D
Great to see you.
- [49:56]
C
We can keep going, Nicole.
- [49:58]
D
I know. Thanks for having us.
- [50:00]
B
Thank you.
- [50:00]
C
Thanks for having us. The run through with Vogue is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex De Palma, and Alex John Burns, with help from Emily Elias. The show is engineered by Bran Bandy and mixed by Mike Kutchman.
- [50:22]
E
Bye.
- [50:30]
F
New shows, new music, new movies. Keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full time job. Thankfully, over at Pop Culture Happy Hour, it's literally our job. We break down what's actually worth watching, listening to, and pretending you already knew about. So the next time someone says, did you see that you can say, yeah, obviously. Follow NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts
- [50:57]
C
from.
- [50:57]
B
PRX.