Proenza Schouler are determined to bring real-world needs for real-life silhouettes in SS24.

In recent seasons, Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have stressed their determination to address the real-world needs and wants of the real-life women who wear their clothes. Yet in so doggedly emphasizing that essential tenet, arrived at over 20-plus years of a circuitous fashion journey, the designers have perhaps shortchanged themselves. Of course, clothes must serve practical purposes; they must function. But not all clothes are fashion. Fashion serves other needs as well – to excite, entice, thrill, captivate, elevate the wearer’s spirit and mind, while making the body look and feel its most fabulous.

For spring, McCollough and Hernandez allowed themselves to immerse fully in both sides of that equation, to near perfect effect. Yes, the clothes work, but they also sing – with power, passion and creativity. As for wearability, gym visits excepted, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a situation, from everyday hustle-bustle to grand evening, that could not be wardrobed from this beautiful lineup.

In two nods to artful expression, the designers showed in Phillips Auction House on Park Avenue, and they debuted a new abstracted PS monogram that appeared on a sweater. Following up on last season when their friend Chloë Sevigny opened the show, this time, musician Natalie Laura Mering, who performs as Weyes Blood, did the honors. By day, smart, often mannish tailoring had an unfettered vibe, but not in the manner of the extreme quiet-luxury construct that can be pedantic in its highly considered plainness. Rather, the clothes worked an audacious cool, shown in bleached jeans and looks that flaunted a pragmatic extra – a double belt with attached hip pouch.

Yes, there was a waft of Helmut Lang – acknowledgment of which is neither a critical dig nor inappropriate designer reference. Lang has entered the pantheon, as legitimate an intentional reference as Yves Saint Laurent. The sturdiness of the tailoring found counterpoint in ethereal dresses that also an bore a touch of the artist – some in long stretches of open fishnet, others in mesmerizing, abstract prints that seemed to float, and a light blue beauty with corded detail that offered a new take on a goddess dress. And tempering the flou: a pair of almost austere strapless leather gowns that worked minimalism for maximum, modernist glamour.