Celebrating the joy and the pleasure of dressing up again, the Proenza Schouler Pre-Spring 2022 Collection imagines what an intelligent and adult wardrobe could look like for a life post- pandemic as many are starting to slowly reemerge into a world that is greatly changed. The sensual and tactile pleasures of a luxury wardrobe are highlighted and celebrated as a reprieve to the sartorial casualization of the past year while retaining much of the effortlessness and ease we have come to know and love. Distinctive proportion play exists throughout, with playfully feminine silhouettes grounded by notes of a traditionally masculine bent to produce an attitude that feels nuanced and thoroughly of the moment. Knits continue to play a starring role, this time sculpted into soft, feminine structures that lightly collapse when worn and paired with glossy leather walking shorts and stiff rubber rainboots that serve as a balancing counterpoint. Duality remains a strong brand code, found in technical fabrics that are seamed by hand with crotchet, or through artisanal lace inlaid into slick and cool-handed matte viscose satins. Suiting is reintroduced with bonded leather lapels or rendered in soft pastel-colored leather and paired back to matching shorts in an attempt to reconcile a moment of simultaneously dressing up and down. Warm tones of marigold, apricot, salmon, and yellow are balanced by cooler sky blues and bright cobalts. Neutrals continue to be important and grounding. The collection exists in this most liminal of times where one foot remains in the comforts of the bubble we knew while the other foot stands firmly in the unknown moment we are now just beginning to enter.
Accessories reflect the sensibilities of the ready-to-wear and are firmly rooted in codes of practicality and ease. Shoes, while low to the ground and comfortable, are designed with the city streets in mind. The new rubber-soled Storm Boots are shown in two silhouettes: a stiff, knee-length version, and a straightforward slip-on clog. Square toed shearling sandals with padded nappa insoles round out the offer. The Dia Day Bag is introduced as a new classic and rendered in smooth and embossed calf skin. The Tobo family expands with the introduction of a north/south silhouette rendered in intarsia leather and spotted shearling.
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The collection, although officially titled “Pre-Spring”, is unequivocally one intended for colder weather months as it begins to deliver in October and is therefore designed with a winter perspective in mind. The days of delivering light clothes in the middle of winter and heavy clothes at the height of summer are behind us as the brand pivots to delivering seasonally appropriate clothes in real time, a prescient move and a radical shift that underscores how the Proenza Schouler woman consumes fashion, the ultimate point of reference for this and any Proenza Schouler collection.
