PROENZA SCHOUELER'S DESIGN TEAM TEACH PARSONS

Over at Parsons The New School for Design, Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez held court on Wednesday. They chatted with Simon Collins, the dean of the school of fashion, and had plenty of advice for the budding designers in the packed room. McCollough and Hernandez stressed the importance of internships, recalling how theirs at Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors, respectively, helped them learn the tricks of the trade, especially fabric sourcing. The label offers a separate commercial collection in its showroom. “Now [the runway] is just for media; it’s a marketing tool,” Hernandez said. The duo admitted it is not averse to a lower-priced secondary line. “When we did the Target project, we saw there is a whole different set of customers,” McCollough said. “It gave us ideas.” This was the first of the Parsons Fashion Conversation Series.