Over the past few years designer Raul Lopez has been studying the anthropology of the Dominican Republic — Luar is New York, but Lopez’s roots run deep to the island nation.

This season he turned his studies to the energy of Carnival — a key influence for many designers this season in various locales — and a tradition of costumes used as rebellion and satire against the island’s colonizers from Europe. His starting point came from taking to the streets, with a range of images of people he’d taken at the festival.

“It’s a cross-pollination between colonizers, enslaved and Indigenous, but at the end, everyone doing it for some type of joy,” he said of the collection he labeled “La Fantasia.”

Joy in the face of dark times can be seen as an allegory to the times Lopez and his queer Black, Indigenous and people of color community find themselves in now. Other designers this week have stepped back from fashion as political messaging, but Lopez is standing 10 toes down with an audacious collection full of personal joy through ornamentation.

As ominous music came over the loudspeaker, out came sharp ideas in black velvet — a floor-grazing coat and a tailored blazer with punctuated shoulders — which represented the “colonizers,“ he said of the tailoring, which also included a style in lavish laser-cut satin strips and feathers.

The joy began to seep out with Debra Shaw, model muse to Lee McQueen, who took to the runway in a molded black dress with zipper up the front like a scuba suit, which encased her in sequins and feathers that leapt off the body.

The finesse of craft across his work was stunning. He looked to local artisans in the Dominican Republic to create the lineup of beading on tops, plastic strips made to look like fur and plumage shooting off garments and head pieces. ”I’ve been trying to do this for years,” he said of the local craftspeople. “To have them create all the bases [of garments] and to respect their work. My team could do this, but why would I not use the people who started these crafts?”

Jewelry, too, used Dominican amber and Larimar, a rare, naturally occurring blue pectolite mineral found exclusively in the Bahoruco Mountain Range of the Dominican Republic.

Color is something the designer said he doesn’t usually gravitate to, but it came on strong with a cobalt bustier top, and slinky pants with side zips, adorned with a massive coat made of gray plastic strips and a black feather headpiece.

Among all the dark celebration were pieces that highlighted Luar codes — bolder shoulder tops; oversize denim separates, or a cropped leather jacket with sculpted shoulders, exuding a baroque sense of power and polish and transforming the utilitarian leather into an emblem of decadence. And his bestselling handbags? They came aplenty, with new footwear ideas with feathers.

The New York shows this week had a lot of great clothes, but the season lacked a runway with a message and showmanship and Luar did just that. He creates for his community with sincerity — ask the crowds of people clamoring to get into the venue that saw a front row of Lourdes Leon and Solange Knowles.