Rachel Scott stepped into the spotlight with her official debut for Proenza Schouler, presenting the Fall 2026 collection, which marks a new chapter for the storied New York brand. The anticipation surrounding this moment was considerable. Scott, the 2024 CFDA Award winner for womenswear and the first Black female designer to receive that honor, took the reins after founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez left to lead Loewe in Paris. While her appointment in September offered hints of what was to come, this collection is the first that she has controlled from start to finish.
| 📌 Key Facts |
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| 🏛️ Brand: Proenza Schouler 🎨 Designer: Rachel Scott 🏆 Title: 2024 CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year 📅 Season: Fall 2026 🧵 Key Focus: Tailoring, texture, handcrafted details 👜 Iconic Bag Update: PS1 reimagined in bowler, tote and bucket versions 🌸 Signature Motif: Digitally reworked orchid prints 🗽 Context: Major transition after founders moved to Loewe |
Scott’s entire approach to Proenza Schouler is shaped by the difference between designing for women and being one. She spoke candidly about rejecting perfectionism, calling it a kind of prison. She acknowledged that the founders loved women, but she brings a different understanding to the work. While previous collections were polished to the point of feeling distant, Scott wanted texture and complexity. She wanted the women wearing these clothes to feel powerful, not just admired from afar.
Her opening look set the tone. A blue dress with a bell shape at the waist moved down the runway with unexpected lightness. The double-faced wool fabric, speckled with green and blue threads and black, revealed its visual depth only upon closer inspection. This attention to surface and texture was evident throughout the lineup, from a sandy denim jacket with a peplum detail to skirt suits that reworked the brand’s codes with fresh proportions.
Scott’s background at Diotima, where she built a reputation for crochet work and handmade techniques, influenced her designs at Proenza Schouler. A Donegal knit, double-breasted suit with a flippy peplum demonstrated her ability to work with unusual materials. A ribbed knit polo dress clung to the body with deliberate sensuality. The orchid prints she developed told their own story about the relationship between hand and machine. She photographed flowers, painted over the images, and digitized them for printing on dresses with fringe details and separates. The process left visible traces of human intervention, with sloppy edges at the hems that were not cleaned up or perfected.
Tailoring was important in this collection because Scott had listened. Before beginning her work, she sat down with some of the brand’s top customers and asked them what they valued most. They discussed how shoulder and armhole placement made them feel in their clothes. Scott took these observations seriously, developing skirt suits and reworking the brand’s sailor pants with askew-placed buttons for a draped, forgiving shape. A houndstooth plaid was rendered in chenille, adding tactile interest with its check details. A trench coat built on a leather base had the same attention to touch and wear.
Scott studied the brand’s history before putting pencil to paper. She identified color, connections to art, tailoring, and craft as foundational elements. Grommets from the founders’ early work reappeared, this time on topcoats. Footwear was updated with previous styles, including fuzzy sole heels with strappy leather laces and loafers with elongated, bulbous toe boxes that leaned toward menswear. The PS1 handbag, a signature of the brand, evolved into bowler bags adorned with hand-painted orchids, supple totes, and a bucket bag crafted from strips of hair calf and suede.
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The collection closed with floral-print dresses featuring asymmetric handkerchief hems, fringe, and layered grommets. Fellow designers, including Maria Cornejo, Veronica Leoni from Calvin Klein, and Raul Lopez of Luar, came out to support Scott, who had her own Diotima show in just four days. Their presence underscored the significance of this moment for New York fashion. Scott offered a vision of the Proenza Schouler woman who no longer stands behind glass, but rather walks through the world with all its complexity.
