LVMH's Loewe announced on March 24, 2025 that Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, founders and longtime creative directors of the New York label Proenza Schouler, would become the maison's creative directors, succeeding Jonathan Anderson after his eleven years there, per WWD and The Wall Street Journal. The same day, Proenza Schouler named Rachel Scott, founder of Diotima, as its new creative director — a double announcement that closed one chapter of American fashion and opened another within hours.
Why is the Loewe appointment unusual?
Because it is a partnership at the top of a major European maison, and because the designers came from a house they founded themselves. McCollough and Hernandez built Proenza Schouler from their 2002 thesis collection into one of New York's defining brands, known for the PS1 bag and a leather-and-craft vocabulary. Taking over Loewe — a Spanish house with a leather-goods pedigree and, under Anderson, a reputation for conceptual wit — asks them to convert founder intuition into institutional authorship for the first time.
What did the move signal about Jonathan Anderson's exit?
The dominoes were visible in sequence. Anderson's departure ended an eleven-year run that turned Loewe from a quiet leather specialist into one of luxury's most discussed brands, per Vogue's account of the transition; he then moved to Dior, where LVMH positioned him over women's, men's and haute couture. The Loewe handover was therefore not an isolated hire but a deliberate exchange inside one group — American founders north, a proven multiversal designer east.
What the debut had to answer
Anderson's Loewe was defined by spectacle-adjacent ideas: rendered fabrics, balloon footwear, craft collaborations. The question the American duo's first collections had to answer was whether Loewe's wit survives without its principal author — and per their interview with W Magazine, the pair framed their vision around a small number of stated pillars for the house rather than a total rupture.
Why does this matter to the wider map?
Because it marks a measurable trend: American designers leading European maisons at scale. It also documents the price of conglomerate mobility — Proenza Schouler, a founder-run independent, continued under Rachel Scott, whose Diotima crochet-led craft practice gives the label a visibly different direction. One appointment, three houses redrawn: that is the 2025 model in miniature.
The same-day announcement at their former label deserves equal weight. Rachel Scott, the Jamaican-born founder of Diotima, was named Proenza Schouler's creative director on March 24, 2025, per WWD — a handover executed without an interim and celebrated in the trade press as one of the few appointments of the cycle to elevate a younger independent voice. The swap therefore ran in both directions: two New York founders taking over a European maison, and a craft-led newcomer taking over the label they left.
For more context, read Julian Klausner At Dries Van Noten: The Second Act, Reviewed.
For more context, read louise trotter.