At the Museum of Arts & Design’s METALBALL last night, Proenza Schouler designer Lazaro Hernandez rolled up his sleeve to reveal a scrape on his arm, which he said was from “gardening.” Gardening? “No, not gardening. We do a lot of, like, woodwork, like cutting down trees and tilling the land,” he said. Uh, what? “We’ve been chopping down trees, getting the land ready for winter, to do some snowboarding out in the fields,” the designer said. With a lot of prodding from The Cut, Hernandez finally explained that he and Proenza partner Jack McCullough bought a place in the Berkshires a year ago, situated on 100 acres of land. These guys are practically lumberjacks — and the New York Times noted only this past weekend that manly men are back! “Apparently someone caught on to what we’ve been doing,” Hernandez deadpanned. However, their logging is not mere testosterone at work; he brings his designer’s eye to the process, chopping a couple of trees each weekend, “until I’m happy with the layout. It’s just like an OCD composing thing.”
They’re also working on the property’s circa-1790s house, which he says is in fairly original condition. “It’s great. We like it old; we’re kind of like restoring it as opposed to remodeling it. We’re taking it back to its original form.” Decorating, Hernandez noted, giggling, is not as butch. “That’s not the manly part. We like a little bit of both.” While the architecture is old, he says the interiors will be more like their life, a mix of things. “It’s not going to be a period piece.”
A little more prodding brought more shocking revelations. Like, they have livestock! Cows, goats, sheep, and chickens! There are also horses, but those belong to other people. “It’s fun, you know,” Hernandez said. “It’s a nice balance to the city life.” The designers also have two dogs, Jojo and Buster, a Newfoundland and a Doberman. But a fashion person can only talk livestock for so long. “I’m oversharing!” he said, and clammed up.
