SeeCalifornia.com

Colorful summer dresses are back! At an outdoor street festival last weekend we saw lots of backs, in fact. The full length, breezy frocks women are wearing aren’t so much lace and frills as bold and beautiful with big splashes and stripes. Hot colors that pop out against the mid-day sun make life seem a little more vibrant and cheery in 2012.

According to a fashion trend analyst, in times of uncertainty the most appealing apparel functions as a panacea. Bursts of color and conventionally flattering shapes can soothe our troubled minds. The dress has remained a primal marker of female identity in the postmodern world, bringing to mind more traditional times when America was still sitting securely on top of the world.

Dresses are a solution to dressing that expresses feminine values without necessarily being formal, says fashion designer Cesar Padilla. The contemporary woman seems to be reacting to modernity by returning to simplicity and femininity. The next shift in fashion trends will signify more than just hemlines. It will also potentially signify the direction in which the economy and the social mood are headed.

What comes next? No one (even fashion designers) know for certain. But today it’s a sunny day in California and it’s good too see the girls are back.