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NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of Brandon Maxwell’s show at New York Fashion Week, his models were doing something models don’t usually do on runways: They were smiling.

Maybe that’s because Maxwell had dressed them in clothes meant to project joy and fun — psychedelic patterns, shimmering fabrics and bright colors, in casual garments that evoked a day in the park or at the beach.

“Don’t we all want to be on a beach at this point?” Maxwell said during a backstage interview after Friday night’s show. “Life has not been a beach for the last year and a half.”

In the past, he said, his designs have been a more literal reflection of his mood and experiences. “If it’s a dark time, it’s been dark clothes, and tight,” he said.

But this time, rather than focus on the bleakness of the past year, Maxwell said he wanted

Brandon Maxwell was busier than usual backstage because he was wearing two hats: designer and stylist. “I wanted to do something that felt authentic,” he said. “When I started I was maybe insecure about not having a fashion education, so I felt I needed to be more serious. But I’m not that serious a person. During the pandemic, I decided that if I got the opportunity ever again, I’d like to do it as me.”

From the first look, this was different. In the five years he’s been on the runway Maxwell has been print-averse, but peeking out from beneath the show-opening sharply tailored jacket was a printed bodysuit, in not just any print but a swirling psychedelic print. Look two featured a sweatshirt with an illustration by the poster artist Mishka Westell on which a mushroom poses on a long shapely pair of legs.

So, just who is Brandon

Back in September 2019, as activist and 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen sat front row during New York Fashion Week, she heard attendees ask each other over and over, “What are you wearing?” The question is innocuous and joyful in the context of fashion, but as a rape survivor, Nguyen couldn’t help thinking about how hostile it felt when she’d been asked the same thing by law enforcement.

Then it clicked: What if survivors reclaimed those words and walked proudly wearing whatever they wanted? From there, the idea for the survivor fashion show was born.

Nguyen is the founder of Rise, a nonprofit that protects and supports sexual assault survivors’ rights. She created the organization after her assault in college, once she saw how flawed and traumatizing the legal system was for survivors. Since its inception in 2014, the organization has helped to