Art Schouler

You might not have fully digested the Fall/Winter 2009 designer collections, yet somehow it’s already time to take in Resort 2009–2010. What more auspicious way to highlight this collection for a young designer than to be welcomed to Florence to show at a Sixteenth-Century Medici villa in Florence during the Pitti women’s shows? This year the historic charge goes to Proenza Schouler, invited by Pitti to bring their collection abroad for the first time, on June 18.

Instead of throwing together another runway show, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have joined forces with Art Production Fund and commissioned artists’ projects to reflect and interpret their collection. In a perfect tribute to Americana goes international, the designers brought onboard gender-bending performance artist Kalup Linzy to create a video piece in response to the new Proenza collection. “We were curious to see how the clothes for the pre-collection would be incorporated into a bigger enterprise in which plot and narrative were leading the way,” say the designers of working with Linzy, who specializes in multiple-monologue performances. “He casted several characters that are in real life important collaborators of Proenza Schouler. The merging of all these worlds, we believe, is a more interesting format to showcase the collection.” Linzy also took up glamorous company for the occasion, inviting Chloe Sevigny and Liya Kebede to play roles. And to top it off, wigs: Linzy employed Bumble and bumble hairdresser Amy Farid to create special wigs for various characters in the film. Says Farid of Linzy’s character, named Taiwan,  “She’s is an androgynous character and somewhat innocent. We wanted the hair to project this innocence with the center part and a flower on the right side, which is also a Taiwan trademark.” Art meets fashion, sex and politics happen.