Rachel Scott's second runway collection for Proenza Schouler is the one where she stopped sounding careful. Her first show felt a touch timid to me. This one seemed more at ease and true to the house that Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez built over two decades.

The setting was the former Rubin Museum, in a building that once housed Barneys New York, and the models spiraled down a central staircase so you saw them from every angle. The show notes said "clothes make room for the woman" and I think the staircase made that literal.

Backstage, Scott explained what she is watching. "There is a lot of liberty in how women dress here," she said, and she finds women in a gown in the middle of the day totally normal. That attitude is why I want to begin with dresses and gowns.

The daywear had clever small details: darting and pleating, curving stripes and geometric peplums that pointed up the hourglass waist. I love when a plain top earns its keep through a seam or a fold, and this is that kind of show.

Scott seems happiest with knits. Crochet is the signature at her own label, Diotima, so a cardigan or a jersey top with a drape or an asymmetric hem feels like her natural language. She is also willing to experiment, and the jacquard zebra stripe coats and dresses hit with real graphic punch. Animal print showed up in about one in five looks, which is plenty for something that bold.

I would wear a draped jersey top with anything, and that flexibility feels like the point.

Shoes are where the thesis shows. One of the sequined gowns, the strapless one, dropped generously to the ankles above flat sandals, and I cannot think of a better way to say that evening is not a separate category anymore.

Strapless and sequins each appeared in only a handful of looks, and leather in a handful as well, so the show was not about shine for its own sake. It was about ease. A knee-high boot or a simple pump belongs in that conversation, because Scott says women here are not following rules about which bag or shoe goes with which hour.

Bags, though, were everywhere, in more than half the looks. The big reveal was an update to the PS1, now called the PS1 Walker, made with Reed Krakoff, in softer leather and a curvier shape.

My favorite gown was the second sequined one, a two-piece with an asymmetric tee and a long, hip-slung skirt. I think the flank is the new erogenous zone, and this skirt proves it. It is a more modern kind of sensuality than a plunging neckline.

That is what stays with me. Scott is still cultivating a woman who is interesting and intellectual, and the clothes do not tell her where to be or what to wear when she gets there.

I would take the zebra jacquard for the daytime, a draped top for everything in between, and save the sequins for a Tuesday.