Joining the Caravan - The Gypsy Aesthetic Gains in Popularity on Runways and Streets - NYTimes.com Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times Pamela Love; Audrey Louise Reynolds; and Estrella Martinez in gypsy-inspired fashion. NO more than a couple of months ago, editors at the Midtown offices of Vogue practiced a form of visual streamlining. "You would see them in Céline chokers and gold Hermès cuffs," said Meredith Melling Burke, the magazine's senior market editor. The look, she said, was clean-edged. Then the other day, in a brash about-face, the same coven of tastemakers jettisoned that pared-down style for a kind of controlled anarchy. "Candy Pratts Price had on a dozen necklaces layered in varying ways," Ms. Burke recalled, referring to the editor at large of Vogue.com. Another staff member "wore rings on every finger, and I had a stack of bracelets crawling up my arm." The changeup was expressive, she said, "of a palpable shift to a more personal, chaotic look," a festive nod to full-on Gypsy chic. Fashion's on-again-off-again love affair with Romany inspirations has indeed been rekindled of late, more reflective in its current incarnation of a mood or attitude, Ms. Burke suggested, than an actual trend. But trend or no, the style, increasingly prevalent in stores and on the runways, is thriving these days as the spirited outgrowth of a popular fascination with generic Gypsy culture. Surprisingly, its flames are being fanned by Gypsies themselves, a youthful cohort intent on exploring the heritage and, often as not, complicit in spinning that heritage into a commodity. Parting a curtain on what has traditionally been an elusive society, some are posting blogs and writing memoirs, others creating musical fusions of Gypsy strings and punk or portraying willfully tarted-up versions of themselves in documentaries and reality shows. The reception to such apparent openness has been especially keen among a handful of influential fashion designers. Frequently obsessed with outsider cultures, they are paying homage by festooning dresses in coins and chains, combining madly clashing patterns or adding flounces and fringe - the high kitsch expression of a look more commonly found on matchbooks and souvenir fans. Among those turning their catwalks into caravans is Peter Dundas of Pucci, who showed midriff-baring flamenco tops and flounced skirts in his spring collection. You imagined a chorus of guitars and castanets in the wings. Massimiliano Giornetti of Ferragamo also caught the fever, showing corsetlike lacing on his cocktail frocks for fall; and Joseph Altuzarra elaborated on the Gypsyish brocade breeches and toggle coats of his fall show in a resort collection highlighted by Balkan-style embroideries. Those collections, Mr. Altuzarra acknowledged, are no more than "a very naïve interpretation of the culture," their inspiration purely aesthetic. "You sense about the Gypsy style something very sensual, very ornate and very precious," he said, "but also very free." A similar blitheness moved Riccardo Tisci to lavish his fall couture collection for Givenchy with opulent beading and fringe that owed a debt to the contemporary Gypsies of his native Southern Italy. Giambattista Valli visited a Romany theme in the Gypsy-inspired wedding dress he designed for Margherita Missoni, of the Italian luxury knitwear clan. Family and friends celebrated the nuptials last month in a centuries-old park, against a backdrop of haystacks and caravans, the festivities animated by the presence of a fortune teller. To the casual eye, Gypsy chic may seem a little déjà vu. Certainly it will to those who recall the Romany and flamenco influences in Yves Saint Laurent's couture collections of the "70s, in themselves opulent riffs on a cherished hippie theme. In fashion circles, that very familiarity breeds skepticism. "Some trends come back like clockwork," said Catherine Moellering, a trend forecaster with the Tobé Report. "It's like when a young designer rediscovers "Love Story" and Ali MacGraw, and you kind of roll your eyes." It leads one to suspect, she said, that "Gypsy" is a catchall term for everything bohemian. But champions of this latest resurrection point out that irreverent styling lends the look a contemporary spin. Stores like J. Crew, Zara, Maje and Bloomingdale's offer flamboyant peasant tops, folkloric embroideries and print mashups tempered by tailored shorts and jeans.