Body positive fashion for if 'Freaks and Geeks moved to the desert and started a country club'

Fashion designer Hayley Elsaesser's clothing is an unmistakable explosion of cheeky patterns, popping colours and just the perfect amount of nostalgia. With its pastel flip-phone prints and shiny velour tracksuits, the latest collection she showed at Toronto Fashion Week in September was no exception.

Her new collection "Teenage Wasteland" is a nod to her rebellious teenage years growing up in small-town Canada, and the journey that she had to take in order to become comfortable in her own skin. As she describes: "When you're a teenager, it can be really hard to want to be yourself. Sometimes it feels like you're wrong for being yourself."

I want [the audience] to be like, 'Oh, that person looks like me and they look awesome. I could wear that.'- Hayley Elsaesser, fashion designer

Elsaesser — whose fans include Lilly Singh, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus — says that she never felt like she fit into the "typical fashion industry," which is why her choice of model is key to her vision as a designer. This notion was carried onto her sparkling showstopper of a runway with models who repped an array of sizes, shapes, gender identities, religions and races. "I want [the audience] to be like, 'Oh, that person looks like me and they look awesome. I could wear that."

In this video, we go behind the scenes of Elsaesser's Toronto Fashion Week show to hear how she got her start, and why she wanted to create a Freaks and Geeks-inspired collection.

Watch Exhibitionists on Friday nights at 12:30 a.m. (1 NT) and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. (4NT) on CBC Television.