Joseph Altuzarra started from Casa Susanna, a photo book about mid-century men who dressed as women at a Catskills retreat. What he took from it was joy: "I just love how joyful it was." He wanted color and a sense of freedom.

He staged it in the gold-leaf lobby of the Woolworth Building, where his headquarters sit, and it felt like a big reveal after a quieter few seasons. I felt that shift from the first exit, a silk madras circle skirt over a crinoline, topped with a voluminous black biker jacket.

That contrast of sweet and tough runs through everything, and it is clearest in the knits, where intarsia sets turned up in animal motifs.

The dresses are where the idea gets literal. Altuzarra showed bejeweled plissé pieces, and he also experimented with dresses and camisoles that unpeel at the seams to reveal an embellished layer underneath.

He put the meaning plainly: "What was once hidden becomes visible; glamour emerges from within." I think that is a lovely way to talk about a dress, and a smarter one than most.

Animal print showed up in only a handful of looks, so it never turned into a gimmick. I would pick one dress with real movement, like the fringed jersey maxi, and let the embellishment do the work.

This is the masculine half of the story, and I think it is the stronger half. Beyond the biker jackets there were broad-shouldered blazers, leather carpenter pants and button-downs with removable, interchangeable starched collars and cuffs.

Leather appeared in about one in seven looks, which is enough to set the tone without taking over. A wide studded belt showed up in about a quarter of the looks, cinching a jacket or a skirt and tying the tough and pretty pieces together.

He wanted a range from a workingman's wardrobe to pretty, delicate things, and the jackets carry the first half. A suede crop or a sharp wool blazer would sit happily over almost anything here.

The detail I keep thinking about is the shoe. Altuzarra built his name partly on slit pencil skirts, and this season they climbed all the way up the hip bones, only now they were worn with shiny black brogues instead of sky-high heels.

Most looks had a bag in hand, and black brogues or loafers appeared in more than half of them, so the flat shoe was clearly the point. It makes the sexiest skirt on the runway feel like something you could walk to work in.

I would wear all of it with those brogues. After a quieter stretch, this felt like a designer happily hitting a new stride, and I was glad to watch.