New York Fashion Week skipped right back into action after an 18-month pause with Collina Strada’s spring 2022 show tonight. Situated on Brooklyn Grange’s rooftop garden in Sunset Park, the show was a raucous welcome back to business as usual—although there is almost nothing usual about the way Hillary Taymour does business.

A few days before the show, she was in her Manhattan studio, fitting Precious Okoyomon in a fuzzy purple dress for an MTV runway show and explaining the key looks of her collection: “We’ve got a farm queen, broken skater queen, prom queen,” started Taymour, “and a frog princess.” The simple message was that after a year of doldrums, we should all have the freedom to dress up as the queens we are.

But this season, rather than go full Animorphs as she’s done in the past, Taymour has found a happy marriage between the natural world and the world around her. She’s deftly fusing literal garden references with real-world pragmatism: The actress Sasha Frolova walked in a macramé skirt and a hand-beaded bodysuit—Taymour’s take on a basket of fresh-plucked flowers—hand-in-hand with her grandmother, who played the gardener. The voluminous, wafty dresses, mostly layered over pants on the runway, were for those sticky summer days when you feel ick about your body, but you’ve got to go out. A new trouser style had a thong built in, for when you feel hot, and belts were made to look like crystal tramp stamps—for when you feel really hot. There were tons of new layering pieces like upcycled tees, cargo trousers, bias-cut and draped midi skirts, and even swimwear, not to mention the sculpted horse and beetle corsets. The former was drawn from Taymour’s past life as an equestrian—she also made winning-ribbon bags—her four-year-old niece modeled the beetle on the runway, one of Collina Strada’s numerous chosen family members who have grown with the brand.

Look even closer, and you’ll find dozens of new accessories too, like upcycled raffia bags and necklaces and straps made from studio detritus. The level of handwork in this collection was dialed up exponentially, with hand-beaded pasties and flowers accompanying more producible items like doodle jeans and a new collaboration with Levi’s that birthed star-studded straight legs and classic denim jackets.

On the runway Taymour dialed the wackiness of it all up to 11 as well. Models plucked carrots, sprinted down the catwalk, waved, laughed, and hugged while two live performances took place. The front row—composed of Kim Petras, Tommy Dorfman, Hari Nef, Aaron Philip, Camila Mendes, and Ella Emhoff—was eating it up, maybe even literally. An errant carrot on the runway, while rhinestone-studded, would have made a nice snack. That begs another question: The glitterati obsess over farm-to-table bistros, why not an equally sustainable approach to fashion? In addition to bringing the good vibes and high octane fun to NYFW, Taymour also brings a deep commitment to reducing waste, turning bottle caps into pieces of high fashion jewelry. As we return to Fashion Week “as usual,” more of her peers should consider doing things the Collina Strada way.