None of the references were quite literal. Raul Lopez of Luar and Rachel Scott, whose four-year-old label is called Diotima, were both thinking of Carnival in the Caribbean, which has its roots in colonial oppression and how enslaved persons reacted with a defiant, joyous ritual of their own. The talented Colleen Allen, who started her brand two years ago, began with the idea of delicate slips and dressing gowns, garments typically worn at home, and then sought to subvert nostalgia. She finds “the trad-wife world, “ as she put it, a little scary. “So the idea was to take away the power and romance of it.”

Even Tory Burch seemed to be looking at feminine traditions at a slant. Before her show in Brooklyn on Monday, as the models were lining up in the backstage, she said she and her team we

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