At Proenza Schouler, The Rules Don't Apply To Rachel Scott

New York Fashion Week inherently comes with a lot of talk about the "New York woman". What does she wear? Where is she going? How are her sensibilities different to the women of the rest of the world? The Proenza Schouler woman has always been the New York woman. "It's really about showing this woman who is free." Rachel Scott tells me the day before the show at the Proenza Schouler studio in SoHo. "She doesn't really think about rules of dressing. Evening wear can be day wear and day wear can be worn at evening events."

The creative director and founder of her own brand, Diotima, has been at Proenza Schouler for a year now, succeeding founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez who are now at Loewe. When the news broke, just weeks before the Spring/Summer 2025 season, it felt like a natural fit. Now, three collections in, Scott is clearly finding her stride. There are plenty of elements, for her Spring/Summer 2026 collection for the house—which took place today between the West Village and Chelsea—that speak to the codes that McCollough and Hernandez have built over the past two-plus decades. Perfectly cut bonded wool dresses in electric blue, asymmetric hems and draped leather all reference a sharpness that the Proenza woman carries. Scott still thinks this is a special element of the silhouette. "There's this edge to her. But I think she was a bit more restrained for Fall and now she's more overt." She says. "I think she's quite an independent spirit, but still intellectual. Those contrasts are what really feel like what a New York woman is. It's the woman that's in my world."

Something that is so intrinsic to the way Scott designs is a sense of freedom. This underscores every element of her work at Diotima, and now that she is settled at Proenza Schouler, we got to see more of it this season. It showed up in the abstract, tiger-like prints in rich red and pale butter yellow that interspersed the first eight exits, transparent v-neck two-tone tank tops, pigment-printed silk blouses and open robe-like coats covered in cyanotype roses—another motif of freedom and rebellion that Scott is known for, representing feminism and political symbolism—, these more eye-catching motifs sit alongside other symbols of rule-breaking, like the technique of twisting materials around the body to feel a little more sensual, or open backs and slashes at the chest and hips on various garments to expose skin.

"There are codes here and I want to be respectful, but I am also quite rebellious and I kind of love rules and I hate them, and love pushing up against them." Scott says. "It's different [to Diotima]. There's more composure here, but I think injecting some of that rebellion and that free spirit into it, some of that rule breaking spirit, I think it's not just me, it's New York."