NEW YORK (AP) — Designer Tory Burch says she’s noticed women don’t want to have rules about what they can wear and when they can wear it. They want to dress their way and she helps them do that with her new collection.

The first runway look set the tone for her Fall/Winter runway at New York Fashion Week on Monday, featuring a dark technical knit track jacket in sporty yellow stripes, paired with wool bouclé pants.

Pandemic life prompted Burch to combine daywear with activewear to reflect a new approach to fashion and a desire for less structure and more comfort, without sacrificing style. Hand-beaded t-shirts and performance jersey quarter-zip sweaters emphasized the high-low fashion sensibility.

“I love sports and we have a sports collection, but we wanted to look at it through a luxury lens, and I see women wearing this stuff and mixing it up for the evening and that’s kind of the interesting part,” Burch said in an interview after the show.

“I started watching women in New York on the streets and saw a shift in how they embrace creativity and their individualism,” she said. “I thought it would be really interesting to think about geometry and women and bodies.”

Many designs featured asymmetrical stitches and edges in shirt tails, cuffs, and skirt hems. High-waisted pants were tight at the waist, but then loose and puffy in peg and harem styles. There were neutral-colored coats, some short and belted to accentuate the waist, others that fell to mid-calf.

Black and earthy brown dominated the looks, but there were playful splashes of bold colors like chartreuse and fire engine red. Burch said she was inspired by the Memphis design movement of the 1980s, which focused on postmodern decor with abstract, asymmetrical shapes and bold colors.

“I was actually looking at roughly Memphis and some of the pottery and rugs, but I also didn’t intentionally want it to reflect a decade. But I knew color and vibrancy and joy had to be part of it because I think we’re all ready to move on from the last two and a half years,” she said.

The final looks were several long-sleeved, ankle-length bodycon dresses in jersey, in a dark palette with geometric shapes in bold colors like yellow and red. Burch’s farewell offering of sparkle and style was a long black jersey dress with a semi-sheer turtleneck, featuring a sequinned fishnet design, adorned with a silver half-moon.

The spectacular venue was the 25th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that towered over the New Yorker Hotel with floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the runway, showcasing the New York skyline at sunset. As the models paraded down the catwalk, the giant red neon “New Yorker” sign glowed in the distance, with the Tory Burch logo projected below.

Uma Thurman and Aimee Lou Wood sat next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour in the front row. This fashion week has more in-person shows than the 2021 schedule, when the pandemic forced many fashion houses to offer only virtual shows.

Katie Holmes said she felt the energy was returning to New York. “I love Tory Burch. I love her clothes and she’s a phenomenal woman so I’m so happy to come out and support her…and it’s fun and inspiring to be around people who create.