Proenza Schouler is a New York based womenswear and accessories brand founded in 2002 by designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. The label is formed from a combination of their mothers’ maiden names. It has its roots in that femininity, and in the meeting of two minds. An aesthetic built on duality, on contrast, on opposites attracting.
Proenza Schouler is defined by its fusion of craftsmanship and attention to detail with a sense of refined ease. Inspiration is drawn from nature, contemporary art and youth culture. The natural and the manmade are both elements infused in its very essence. To find inspiration and design their collections Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez escape from their everyday surroundings and reconnect to nature: to what has been here before us and to what will be here after us, to what truly matters - the earth, humanity, spirit, and love.
In launching their debut fragrance, fruit of 2 1⁄2 years of collaboration with L’Oréal Luxe, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are now establishing Proenza Schouler as a major luxury perfume brand.
ABOUT THE FRAGRANCE: ARIZONA – A LANDSCAPE FOR RECONNECTION
“Reconnecting to things that really matter most feels both extremely personal and universal. In today’s world, this feeling of wanting to connect to something more real feels right to us. The sense of the outdoors, of unexplored nature, of a kind of universal energy.” Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez
Arizona - far out West, a birthplace of America. It is not just a location on a map: it is a teeming landscape of contrasting elements, a vast space of conquest. It has a raw beauty, shaped by nature. The quintessence of the American mood of adventure and exploration. A pioneering spirit.
Arizona is a state of mind, a feeling of expansive vistas, of adventure. A place that somehow has an energy about it, a place of beauty and mystery.
Arizona has inspired artists, writers, filmmakers and creatives for generations. Arizona - an idea, a dream. It conjures feelings of liberation to find a greater truth. Arizona - a name. A respect and love of nature, and a sense of unbridled freedom. Arizona – a signature scent summarizing the ideology of the label.
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have carved out a niche in the international fashion landscape via their repute for innovation and groundbreaking design. That spirit of discovery and experimentation, frequently melding the natural with the man-made, has translated into their debut fragrance.
Arizona is a radiant and blooming floral scent, with a unique mineral signature.
Two accords, two notes, are at the very heart of the fragrance: a creamy orris accord and a white cactus flower accord. The most expensive of perfumery elements, orris accord has a heritage harking back to the sixteen century BC. The bloom of the Torch Cactus blossoms at most, once a year. Never before experienced in a fragrance, its unique scent could never have been explored without the technology of the twenty-first century. LivingTM technology enables to capture the scent of this rare desert flower without harming nature.
Old versus new, tradition versus innovation.
The white cactus flower accord has been combined with jasmine absolute, orange flower absolute and a solar accord. A blend creating the blooming and faceted floral heart of Arizona. The orris cream accord brings an enveloping sensuality, like a second skin effect. Added to muscs and cashmeran it introduces a textured creamy woody veil, draping skin in a comfortable shield.
The notes of Arizona transform and develop as they meld with the body, in yet another partnership. This one, of woman and fragrance.
As with Proenza Schouler’s groundbreaking designs, Arizona’s unique scent is created by a melding together of two different minds, and two separate approaches. Two perfumers were tasked with collaborating to create this scent.
With a knowledge founded deep in the heritage of the perfumer’s art, Carlos Benaim finds a synergy between fragrance and painting- he is adept at both. His fragrances create an “olfactory image,” counted in four decades of work in the perfume industry. A Master Perfumer of IFF- a label noting Benaim as a paradigm-shifter and a creator own trend-setting fragrances- his pedigree and heritage are illustrious.
The first Asian American fine fragrance perfumer in the industry, Loc Dong became intrigued by the scents of plants in Saigon in his native Vietnam. Harvesting and sorting plants by smell, that preadolescent training forms the basis for references still alive in his fragrances today. Dong is an innovator, relentlessly experimenting and pushing forward the boundaries of technology. Championing synthetic and finding harmony in the combination of notes of nature and manmade, he creates one- of-a-kind combinations that have never been experienced before.
Based in New York and Paris, with heritages from the Far East and the Mediterranean, Carlos Benaim and Loc Dong represent two distinct and contrasting schools of perfumery.
Brought together, they created something entirely new in Arizona.
Through the fusion of traditional fragrance savoir-faire and innovative technology, Arizona translates all the energy and contrasts of the brand.
ABOUT THE PACKAGING: ARIZONA - A PIECE OF ART
Inspired by the ravines and ridges that define the horizon of the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, sculpted by nature over millions of years, the Arizona bottle is a work of art in itself. A drop of water encapsulated in glass. A magical melding of man and nature. A meeting point. A fusion.
Art is always a starting point in Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s collections. Likewise as a bold creative statement, Land Art references are infused in the feel of the Arizona bottle.
Created from glass - formed from sand, thus a reflection of the desert in its very material - the bottle is another example of Proenza Schouler’s signature combinations of opposites. The glass bottle of Arizona harnesses a revolutionary patented forming technology, part of the Verescence Sculpt'in program.
Defying the laws of hollow glass forming, Verescence uses state of the art technology to ‘sculpt’ the glass of the Arizona bottle, as one may sculpt granite or marble. The final form reflects the faceted angles of rocks rather than the blown shape of glass - allowing a disruptive asymmetry, an entirely new appearance for a perfume bottle. The consequence seems natural - timeless, reminiscent of natural minerals, something pure and elemental, of the earth - but in fact a pure innovation.
Alongside the naturalistic, tactile shapes of the hewn glass bottle, the stopper is sharp, graphic and defined. Its modernist and industrial feel together with the bottle’s organic, nature-carved forms bring a sense of imperfection, a sense of the human hand. What Proenza Schouler dub ‘the perfectly undone’.
90mL ($130); 50mL ($100); 30mL ($75)
Available at Saks Fifth Avenue, SaksFifthAvenue.com, Nordstrom.com and ProenzaSchouler.com
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