Suspended between femininity and masculinity, breathtaking wonder and elevated reality, Erdem’s spring collection was a love-letter to Barbette, a star trapeze performer who dazzled audiences in the 1920s and ’30s. Before we get into his story—which the designer related in a mini-lecture backstage—let us take a moment, please, to appreciate the full scope and technical accomplishment of the wardrobe Erdem Moralioglu is putting forth these days.

While he’s nailed evening dresses in every variety from tiny and short to lingerie-light to ball-gown fantasy, he’s also become equally great at cutting multiple-choice evening tailoring and tweed coats. Not forgetting his decorative-yet-cool casual denim and rose-print day jackets. Or the two outstandingly fabulous silk brocade-inserted, couture-volumed Barbour collaboration jackets that made their way around his runway for spring.

It’s a fully-realized Erdem world, this—everything from crisp shirts, easy pajama suits to bags—and the news is that all this will be available in the store he’s opening in New York at the end of next May.

Which makes it even more relevant, somehow, that Erdem’s story this season was based on an American. “Barbette was an aerialist, a kind of performance artist, who was actually born Vander Clyde in Texas. He really discovered the idea of gender fluidity when he was performing with two sisters,” said the designer. “One died, and he had to replace her, and hence he dressed up as a woman for the first time.”

The sparkle-embroidered leotards, bras, and underwear, and the ostrich feather furbelows on the runway were directly inspired by Moralioglu’s study of Man Ray’s photographs of Barbette in his costumes for his performances at the Moulin Rouge and the Casino de Paris. His popularity, only enhanced when he took off his wig to reveal he was not a woman at the end of his act, meant he also attracted surrealists like Jean Cocteau. “It was always about a duality. It was almost like he wasn’t trying to be a woman or a man. You can see that quite clearly in the images that Man Ray took,” said Moralioglu. “It was truly about this kind of androgyny, and so [this season] was about exploring the most feminine of feminine underwear, bras, pants, and other things that just like felt so feminine, and then layering it with something that felt very, very masculine.”

It made for a collection that was possibly the best yet in Moralioglu’s career. “It felt like a joyful moment,” he said, and then added a final thought. “I also felt like it was very interesting to explore this kind of subject in America as well. That idea of gender in this time that we live in, I found it urgently.