Rachel Scott shines, plus more standout moments from New York Fashion Week | Canada Voices

The Fall/Winter 2026 fashion month schedule has officially begun, with last year’s avalanche of creative director debuts now mostly behind us.

This week, designers offered up their visions of the New York woman – from the ’90s minimalist silhouettes of Carolyn Bassette Kennedy at the Khaite show to the bold, animal print glamour of the Peggy Guggenheim collection at Carolina Herrera. Amidst the various takes, one thing is certain: the NYC woman is always on the move – and impeccably dressed.

Here are the week’s standout moments.

Rachel Scott bookends NYFW

If Rachel Scott’s name isn’t on your radar yet, it will be soon. The New York designer first rose to fashion fame with her label Diotima. Last year, she was announced as the new creative director of Proenza Schouler after founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez decamped to Paris to steer the ship at Loewe.

Scott bookended the NYFW schedule, opening the week with her highly anticipated debut at Proenza Schouler and closing it with a powerful presentation at Diotima. At Proenza, Scott painted a picture of a woman in motion with wool skirt suits featuring contrasting collars, cropped double-breasted jackets and dresses for all occasions.

The collection showed a welcome level of restraint. Instead of leaning into exaggerated silhouettes and crafted elements, Scott focused on fit, form and movement. Accessories and bags were styled sparingly, bringing footwear – square-toed leather pumps, pointed kitten heels and satin and shearling sandals – to the forefront. For the finale, photographic imagery of night orchids was manipulated and reworked in prints on dresses and separates.

Scott’s Proenza woman may be on the right path to finding herself, but her Diotima woman is already there.

Characterized in the show notes as “incandescent and intellectually free, elegant and insurgent,” the Diotima woman tells her story through craft and culture. Scott drew inspiration from Cuban painter Wifredo Lam, known for his Afro-Cuban cubist and surrealist works. The designer brought these themes to life with translucent form-fitting dresses and show-stopping skirts and gowns, some made of organza intarsia and others of pressed mohair meant to mimic fur.

Collina Strada goes dark

“The world is a vampire,” according to Collina Strada designer Hillary Taymour, and her latest collection is the armour we need to face it.

Feeling bogged down by the worsening weather (politically and literally), Taymour leaned into a darker colour palette and Gothic details such as face-framing organza collars, Victorian lace and oversized tailored overcoats.

This season, the brand started working with BioFluff, a plant-based alternative to fur. The material appeared transformed in a fitted cropped jacket and faux fur hoodie. The rest of the collection was designed for withstanding tough times: inflated shoulder pads were constructed out of deadstock satin and appeared atop sheer lace dresses and satin tops, and long-sleeve tees were slashed along the arms to expose the skin beneath.

One might not be able to outrun a vampire, but the new Keen and Collina Strada shoe collaboration might provide enough of a distraction to escape unscathed. The Targhee EXP boot and Jasper Rocks sneaker feature satin-like uppers, corset-style lace and floral embellishments made entirely from vegan and 100 per cent recycled materials.

Marc Jacobs x Marc Jacobs

Few designers could reference themselves without seeming pretentious. Marc Jacobs, with his decades-spanning career, has proven he’s one of them.

The label’s show, held at the Park Avenue Armory, was titled “Memory. Loss” and presented an introspective look at loss and nostalgia. Jacobs revisited several of his own collections – from 1993’s Perry Ellis show to his diffusion line Marc by Marc Jacobs – as well as those by Yves Saint Laurent, Prada and others. The result is the kind of collection that Jacobs hasn’t shown in a while: a wearable one.

His collections over the past few seasons have skewed almost cartoonish, and judging by the crowd’s reaction, the fashion set appeared overjoyed to have the old Marc back. V-neck sweaters, pencil skirts, coordinating plaid skirt suits and mod miniskirts were functional yet fun, while ’90s throwbacks like sequin tube tops, ruffled blouses and coats worn backward brought the quirkiness factor the label is known for.

The new minimalists

New York has a rich history of minimalist design, from Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang’s anti-fashion of the early ’90s to Donna Karan and Michael Kors’ restrained glamour.

This past week, a handful of emerging brands proved the city that never sleeps will never sleep on its simple, chic design codes. FFORME, a young brand with a cult-like following, continued to build momentum, with multi-hyphenate creative Athena Calderone and entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman among those in attendance at its New York show.

Designer Frances Howie found inspiration in the city’s bygone debutante era and the local couturiers who dressed them. Elongated wool coats were fastened at the neck with a single button to create cocooning silhouettes. Tailored collarless coats were layered over blazers with jumbo lapels, making it difficult to discern where the jackets ended and the coats began.

Meanwhile, Colleen Allen showed draped velvet gowns and clever, multifunctional accessories – most notably new Bustle bags, which quickly became favourites among editors and buyers. And newcomer to watch, LVMH Prize semifinalist Zane Li of LII, brought a burst of fresh energy with bold colour-blocking and offbeat layering.