More fun, more comfortable, better nostalgia.

While some women are paying maybe $600 for pair of jeans to distinguish themselves in our heavily jeans-clad culture, other women are fed up with of all the tight clothes and wearing billowy long skirts:

"I'm tired of all those tight little skirts and pants I have to keep pulling up to get them to cover my rear," [artist Elizabeth] Huey said as she held up several alternatives she considered more compelling. They were breezy, colorful skirts redolent of Woodstock, midnight hayrides and prom nights: the sort of thing that she once could find only at vintage stores. "Now they're everywhere," she said. "It's exciting."

Leping Pu, a 40-year-old doctor shopping at the store, was also drawn to fuller skirts. "Designer clothes have been so tight you can't put them on," muttered Dr. Pu, who wore a floral-patterned skirt that swirled around her calves. "I like something free enough to give you space to move."

Jeans once were about freedom, comfort, and affinity with the working class. I remember a period in the 1970s when young people wore only Levi's or Lee jeans and scoffed at older women who bought "designer jeans." (The brands of the time were Jordache, Sassoon, and Gloria Vanderbilt.) Lately, we've been reliving that period, with a bizarre misplaced nostalgia for things that were not considered good at the time. So I'm glad to see the hippie skirts come back. More fun, more comfortable, and better nostalgia.