Designer Brandon Maxwell, a favorite of Lady Gaga’s, Naomi Campbell’s, and, just recently, Meghan Markle’s, has had Gigi Hadid, Joan Smalls, and Jourdan Dunn walk down his runway and appear in his lookbooks. But for the casting of his fall 2018 campaign, he went in a different direction, booking 81-year-old Louise Johnson to model his latest collection. It’s OK if you’re not familiar with that name (for now): Johnson is Maxwell’s grandmother.

In the campaign Johnson is photographed wearing Brandon Maxwell fall 2018 looks (two of which appeared on the Fashion Week runway on Bella and Gigi Hadid). The familial connection between model and designer isn’t the only thing that’s personal about this campaign: It was shot in Longview, Texas, Maxwell’s hometown, and where Johnson spent part of her career working as a buyer at a local boutique (a job that would inspire her grandson to pursue a career in fashion), and was created in collaboration with Maxwell’s fiancé, Jessy Price.

Maxwell tells Glamour that the idea for this campaign originated a year ago. The intention was to shoot both of his grandmothers in his collection, but his paternal grandmother passed away unexpectedly before they were able to do so. “I just thought right now, I’m in a place in my life where I’m thinking a lot about who I am and where I’m from and what made me who I am, and very core to that story obviously is my grandmother,” he says. “I grew up in a clothing store with her—under a clothing rack, under the cash register…. She really pushed me to do what I do today. And I think that there’s no better way to honor that than giving her that space.”

Maxwell and Price felt a responsibility to “have this one shot to tell the authentic, true story,” the designer explains. “As you go out into the world to pursue your dreams, you have to leave your family, and that’s very hard. And you’re hoping, ultimately, that you can do something that makes them proud, that gives you a little bit of success and them a little bit of recognition. You’re always racing against the clock for that to happen, because you’re out in the world chasing your dreams and people are getting older. I felt pride and excitement that we had arrived at this point that I was able to do that, and also the immense pressure to honor her in a way that made her feel purpose.”

This isn’t the first time Johnson wears Brandon Maxwell. The designer recently designed her a custom outfit for his sister’s wedding. In the campaign she’s photographed in a few key looks from his fall 2018 collection. Though the designer says there wasn’t a specific strategy behind picking out what his grandmother would model, some of the pieces are a nod to her life. “Her thing is really watering the yard in her jeans, so that’s why we had her sitting on an apple box in her yard, in jeans,” Maxwell says. “I wanted us to do things that were authentic—I thought, also, the coat that Bella wore to open the show…[Johnson] is always walking around the house in a robe like that, so I wanted to make sure that it was core to who she is.”

Maxwell wanted to release the fall 2018 campaign in August—a time that’s typically slow for the fashion news cycle, since a lot of people are out on vacation before Fashion Week—because it’s Johnson’s birthday. Still, while teasing the images and accompanying film on social media, he realized, based on the response he was getting from followers, that “everyone has a Mammaw—it may not be a grandmother, it could be an aunt or a mother, but everybody has some version of that woman in their life that’s special to them, that defines something for them in their life. I felt this sort of community around [the campaign].”

Ultimately, that type of personal connection is what Maxwell thinks all of this—his designs, his campaigns, his brand—is all about: having people reach out and say that something he made spoke to them. “It’s not about the dress or the pants right—it’s about the feeling.”

Check out the full Brandon Maxwell fall 2018 campaign film, below.

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