Vintage styles at New York Fashion Week, Part 1

There have been lots and lots of vintage looks at the Spring 2007 shows in New York this week. There are many 20s-style drop-waist dresses and there's been wholesale plundering of 60s styles in the form of trapeze (aka tent) dresses, neat little Jackie dresses, and ethnic-style tunics, two of which are shown at left -- the paler one is from Nicole Miller, the bottom one is from Diane von Furstenberg.

I love the tunic look -- what could be nicer than a neat little pull-over shift? They're versatile, too: tunics, unlike dresses, can be worn over pants without making the wearer look like a doofus, because after all, that's how tunics were meant to be worn. They'd look equally good worn over leggings (I hate footless leggings, but I know when I've lost the fashion battle), and as shown, they make nifty little dresses. I would wear mine longer, having worn it short the first time around, but I think this is actually a style that could be recycled in spite of the admonition that if you're old enough to wear a style the first time around, you should wear it on its revival. Tunics have been worn for thousands of years, after all.

There are often vintage tunic patterns for sale, some of which look darn similar to the dresses shown here. There are contemporary patterns for kurtas available too. So it's fairly easy for you sewists to get a current look at a fraction of the price of a designer dress, and that's always a good thing, isn't it?