hit parade.

We worked so hard on this one. It's the first summer we didn't take a vacation," said Lazaro Hernandez, the cool Latin fire of the brilliant design duo Proenza Schouler. In their tenth collection during a short but extraordinary ascension to the top of the fashion-trade mountain, Hernandez and Jack McCollough created a 32-look line that was outstanding not only for its inventiveness but also for its pragmatic realism. How did this impressive urban-life collection-the mother lode of New York Fashion Week-evolve? "We started out looking for a space to show. The [Park Avenue] Armory we love. When we decided we wanted to do a silhouette that was all legs and height, we saw vitrines full of American military hats as we were walking through the Armory. The plumes were ideal to continue the silhouette and also complete the idea of tribal elegance. We asked to borrow one, and we just sketched hats and hats." I have witnessed the way they prepare for a collection, like researchers in a lab, minus the white coats and high-tech microscopes. The ideas are put on beautiful paper-sophisticated concepts that don't swerve off the runway into indecision. The synthesis of two minds is rare in fashion. When Hernandez and McCollough decided to show what appeared to be inside-out jackets over white shirts, there was a reason. The graphic stripes conveyed an image of tribal arts in military mode. The precision of the white shirts anchored the gorgeous linen-burlap ...