Gabrielle Katz and Owen Beaufort-Zeal had a fast, international courtship befitting of two people in the fashion world. When Owen matched with Gabrielle—founder of public relations firm Accent Projects—on Raya in November 2024, he was midway through planning a move from Milan to New York City. Gabrielle says she understood this soon-to-be transplant would have no idea where to take her out for drinks—so, she texted the GM of the recently opened hotspot The Corner Store to score bar seats. “If the date sucked, at least I would get a good martini,” Gabrielle says.
When Owen arrived, Gabrielle was busy chatting away with the PR heads of Loewe, Max Mara, and Hermès, all of whom were waiting for their respective tables. Once they were alone, Owen explained he was also in the fashion world and was moving to head up the American division of the brand Slowear. “I thought he was too good-looking to date seriously,” Gabrielle says. “So I might as well try to get a new client.” However, the evening continued with amazing banter, chemistry, and ease, and she changed her mind.
Owen asked Gabrielle to dinner the following night, which was the evening of the presidential election. “I told him I needed to rock back and forth on the sofa,” Gabrielle says. As the results began coming in, she decided she did want company after all, and he arrived on her doorstep with purple flowers—the couple’s first tradition, which still stands today. “Though devastated at the state of my country, I was becoming increasingly optimistic about the state of my love life,” says Gabrielle. They would only have one more night to see each other before Owen returned to Milan and Gabrielle would travel to Copenhagen for a wedding.
While they were both in Europe—though, it should be noted, 880 miles away from each other—Gabrielle took a leap of faith and asked to visit Owen in Italy for one evening. “That night in Milan, I not only fell in love with him, but I knew I had finally met my husband. And he was so much better than I could’ve ever dreamed,” she shares. “We chased each other around six countries in the first three months until he was able to move in with me.”
Less than a year later, Owen worked with Kimberley Fine Jewels to design an engagement ring for Gabrielle—an old mine cushion cut diamond framed by two baguettes. He proposed the night before her birthday, on August 12, 2025, in Saint-Remy, France. Owen, who is half-French and half-British, originally intended to pop the question on his father’s farm a few weeks later. “However, Gabby had to return to New York for work—which thwarted my plans, but not my ambition,” he says. “After a long dinner with friends, we returned to our hotel, where I suggested a nightcap. Gabby went to freshen up, and when she came into the bedroom, I was on bended knee and asked her to be my wife.”
