At New York Fashion Week, Collina Strada’s fall-winter 2024 collection was all about the gym bro. Except add fashion and subtract the bro. 

“Welcome to Collina’s Gym, where your inner feminine power takes outer chiseled form,” the show notes read. Creative director Hillary Taymour has never used cisgender male models in her runway shows, but this season, it felt especially important not to. “…the femme body and mind has long been shaped by the imagination of men. It’s about time we re-sculpted that meat-headed vision into something closer to the reality of femininity,” Taymour said.

The show was held on February 9th at Rockefeller Center’s exhibition space HERO. Titled “STRONGER,” the collection was dominated by swole silhouettes with padding and ruching used to exaggerate the size of shoulders, arms, and abdominal muscles. Models stomped down the runway to a mashup of heavy metal, Britney Spears, Spice Girls, and a mantra that repeated: “We are the women of Collina. Our strength reflected in Collina.” Taymour’s recurring muses were present on the runway, too: models Aaron Rose Philip, Indira Scott, and Quannah Chasinghorse.

Pattern is a Collina staple, and the first three looks featured green and yellow swirls decorating velvet pants, an asymmetrical spaghetti strap gown, and a cap-sleeve draped mini dress paired with thigh-high sheer socks and frilly knee-high boots. Taymour mixed deadstock satin and lace fabrics with UGG x Collina boots made from corn husk leather. The collection was a swoon-worthy masculine-feminine juxtaposition.

One model wore a calf-length mint green button-up dress that was opened to expose her pregnant stomach, which shone with glitter. Black lacy short-shorts were a girly contrast to the model’s clenched fist and blue boxing boots.

Next down the runway came rubber muscle shirts that were so shiny it looked like the models had been body-painted only a few minutes before. One of the latex-looking tops was green, orange, and tucked into frilly white boxers serving as a waistband for an acid-trip patterned slip skirt. A few looks were finished with mini platform UGG boots printed in trippy green swirls – a comfy necessity for any fashionistas who don’t believe that beauty is pain.

Oversized slouchy green knits and matching scrunched legwarmers brought to mind a fashion girl’s hungover coffee run outfit. T-shirts were pre-sweat stained and ripped, while classic heather gray sweatpants and sweatshirts got re-cut into subversive shapes. An orange and pink patterned long-sleeved mini dress with shoulder and arm pads created the illusion of massive muscles.

Two female bodybuilders walked the runway, one wearing a long powder blue slip dress with a high slit and blue boxing boots, the other in a puffy, striped muscle tee and gray gym shorts layered over black lace shorts. The model flexed her arms for the audience at the end of the runway, showing off muscles that would make any generic gym bro jealous.

One model wore a blue, purple, and gray frilly top and matching capri pants layered underneath a pleated gray mini skirt while holding dumbbells made out of gourds. She resembled a fairy who had fashioned her own weights out of tiny squashes. 

The models’ skin glistened like they had just finished a gnarly weight training circuit. For a collection sculpted around muscle and strength, there were lots of lace and satin pieces like halter-neck tops, slip skirts, and long gowns. Model Maddie Moon strutted in a velvet floor-length dress with her newborn baby perched on her hip.

Onlookers included models and influencers like Tommy Dorfman, Ivy Getty, Gabrielle Richardson, Clara Perlmutter (@tinyjewishgirl), Molly Blutstein (@accidentalinfluencer), TikTok chef Pierce Abernathy, athlete/model/DJ Griffin Brooks, and TikTok’s favorite bassist Blu DeTiger. 

Esteemed writers and critics like Lynn Yaeger, Rachel Tashjian, Sarah Spellings, and Hannah Jackson were also in attendance.

An acid trip is not an inaccurate descriptor for the Collina Strada runway, and with enormous LED screens that showed montages of colors, nature, and galloping horses blurred together, it felt like the audience, models, and clothes alike had melted into one Collina-induced soup that submerged us all.

Taymour sent every version of femininity down the runway, prompting the audience to reckon with what defines womanhood. The fashion industry prioritizes women who are young, slim, and smooth. But Collina believes that “femme is a flex,” according to the show notes. Every version of women was sent down the runway: the young and the old, the big and the small, the frowning and the smiling, the mothers and the soon-to-be mothers. Womanhood is a spectrum as much as gender is, and in “STRONGER,” Taymour encouraged the audience to embrace everyone across the scope of expression. At New York Fashion Week, Collina Strada cemented itself as an advocate for fun, freedom, and most importantly, for femme.