We’ve been on location in New York for the past few days, where we couldn’t help but notice how many of the young & trendy have switched their sun dress length from mini to maxi this summer. 
In fact, we spotted toe-length gowns everywhere the fashionista/preppy element gathers in the warm weather months:  in the Hamptons, in the country, and strolling the streets of Soho and the West Village.

Eva Longoria, Molly Sims, Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan in “day gowns”

Even the New York Times has taken notice in last weekend’s Sunday Styles section.

This is huge, because, seriously, could anything be any easier to wear?  It’s like the best features of a dress and jeans combined:  No bare legs issues, no “Does my butt look fat in these?” interrogations, no obsessing about which shoes to wear--from the ribcage down, nothing matters.  You could have a small family under there and no one would know.  And because they create a long, vertical line, even tiny girls like Eva Longoria can wear them with the help of some serious platform sandals.
(Besides, we just can’t help liking something that makes Jessica Simpson look slightly less skanky than usual and Lindsay Lohan look practically...ladylike.)

In fact, we haven’t been this excited about a hemline since we acquired our first “maxidress” when we were 9 years old.

[For those of you hateful things who are too young to know what we’re talking about, long skirts and dresses were co-opted by the hippie culture in the 60’s as kind of a retro- back-to-nature, anti-fashion statement.  Often Victorian-era or ethnically-inspired, the bohemian-looking long dresses and skirts were meant to be the antithesis of the sleek, mod minis that dominated the era.  So naturally, by the early 70’s, the maxidress was a mainstream fashion must-have.  One particularly hideous manifestation, known as a “granny gown” to those of us who perpetuated the fad, became wildly popular with a certain subset of nerdy preteen girls who were already completely obsessed with the “olden days"--thanks to books like Little House On The Prairie and Little Women, not to mention such stellar TV westerns as Here Come The Brides and Alias Smith and Jones.  We even wore our granny dresses to school, where they were eventually banned because too many of us were tripping on our own hems on the playground.  Is it any wonder we were always picked last for kickball?]

While a lot of today’s styles definitely echo a certain 70’s chic, (sometimes a little too much, Molly Sims?) there’s nothing “granny” about dresses like these.  Any one of them could easily take you from brunch to dinner-- and beyond-- here in Tampa, where their casual, resort-y vibe seems especially appropriate.

Especially when a mariachi band is involved.