The Tamesis
As Carrie Bradshaw proved when she became a fashion killer in Season 4 sex and cityFor fashion industry professionals, perhaps nothing is cooler or more fascinating than the literary outsider. happiness and love Writer Zoe Dubno boldly took up the mantle this week, walking the runway in Rachel Scott’s first collection for Proenza Schouler.
Far from being the only non-professional model at New York Fashion Week (Wes Gordon cast artists like Rachel Feinstein, Ming Smith and Amy Sherald for Carolina Herrera’s fall 2026 show; Scott also sent psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster down her runway), Dubno hinted at a future in which the creative minds who have helped make the city great will be used deftly to make collections feel more lived-in and vibrant. This week, Fashion Chatted with Dubno about working with Scott, turning to her friend Zoe Latta for everyday catwalk advice, overcoming stage fright and the Proenza cape that captured her heart. Read the full interview below.
Fashion: How did you come up with the opportunity to walk on the Proenza show?
Zoe Dubnow: I got an email from the casting director and it was like, “Hi, we’re casting for the Proenza show this season, would you be interested in walking?” When I got that email, I took a screenshot and sent it to my mom, and I was like, “Do they mean as a novelist, or…?” I grew up in New York, and all the really rich girls would have their moms buy them Proenza bags. I remember it was the fashion night era in New York.
Oh yeah, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.
When they emailed me, I thought, ‘That’s OK, they’re probably going to ask me to do this, but they’re not going to want me in the end, so it’s OK. I really don’t have to do this. I’m not an actor, you know? Once I started going to public events, I enjoyed it, but I had a lot of stage fright, so it was really a big thing for me to be like, ‘Okay, I don’t have to be like a wimp and say no.’ I can bravely say “yes” and that’s okay.
They invited me to a casting, and I was friends with a few fashion people, so I asked Zoe Latta—who had been casting regular people, including two of my best friends—if she would have them come to an office full of models. She was like, That won’t be the caseand I went, which was actually funny, because I wasn’t sure where I was going, and then I saw a six-foot-tall blonde and followed her because I thought, okay, she knows. We got to the office and she wrote her name and agency on this piece of paper; she knew exactly what to do, so I wrote my name next to hers in minimal handwriting, and then the casting assistant asked, “Can the person who just logged in add their avatar and agency?” I was like, ‘Oh my God… I’m a novelist. sorry. ‘
