Proenza Schouler Fall/Winter 2026 at New York Fashion Week

Proenza Schouler Fall/Winter 2026 / FW26 at New York Fashion Week

For Proenza Schouler FW26 / Fall/Winter 2026, this is the first Women’s Collection by Rachel Scott. Colour, precision, craft, proximity to art. An edge sharpened by the city. These codes remain, but the perspective shifts, and we get closer to a new Proenza Schouler woman – a woman shaped by thought, intuition, contradiction.

To the unknowing eye, she is put together, precise, deathly punctual. Those who recognize her sense that there is more to her: The Proenza Schouler woman for FW26 / Fall/Winter 2026 rejects perfection as constraint. She is composed, yet mysterious and cinematic. She is disciplined but capricious – human.

Today, she was in a rush. Dresses are lightly rumpled, draping and tucks appear slightly irregular. Elsewhere, dresses and skirts twist across the back and fasten with buttons, suggesting a woman in motion, moving quickly and with purpose. Truncated waists and elongated legs offer a silhouette of power. Soft, unstructured tailoring allows for sharpness and ease. Double-faced wools, compact matte viscose and Donegal knits support silhouettes that hold their shape without rigidity. Silk habotai fabric is crushed and pleated, then bonded, resulting in an irregular surface that balances lightness with architectural form. Rigidity is loosened through pleating spliced into fabric, while grommets interrupt precision with erratic, half-cut fringe. Colour reverberates through twisted yarns, mouliné, and chiné techniques in which printed threads are woven into fabric, resulting in disturbance to the edges of otherwise precise forms.

Photographic imagery of night orchids is manipulated and reworked, retaining film-like borders, traces of process left visible – placing digital precision alongside the hand, reflecting an approach to craft that respects tradition and embraces modernity. This motif appears across the collection, in print and hand-painted leather. Dark and sensuous, it is delicate in appearance yet resilient beneath the surface.

Accessories echo the language of contrast. Bags revisit familiar silhouettes – such as the archival Hex bag, a clutch and a bowler bag – through mixed materials, combining calf hair, cashmere suede, French calf, and kidskin. Footwear explores distortion: grounded pumps with exaggerated square toes, sharply elongated pointed kitten heels, satin sandals with shearling footbeds. Ruptured fringe carries the collection’s sense of controlled friction into footwear.

Rather than designed for a single occasion, these clothes move easily between contexts. They are for a new New York woman, a global woman, who is aware of what the world asks of her but is unwilling to acquiesce to expectations.