October Burda technical drawings! Sorry, bikini-clad vacationers, get out your pumpkins already!

I guess the Russians are just that much keener to get on with their coats and who can blame them? So here is the Russian preview of Burda October, and I must say, there are two choice overcoats there, as well as some other interesting items. But hey, I haven't finished my August sunbathing yet!

Protest! No, Zara, no, no, no, you poor dears. Wrong, wrong, wrong, THIS is a 'Vintage Style' Denim Skirt

Sometimes the youngsters just get it wrong, the poor little dears. I was there, in poyson—Joan Baez concerts, Berkeley demos, anti-Vietnam War marches on San Franciso, sit-ins against the bombing of Laos and Cambodia—and what Zara is advertising this season for some 40 Swiss smackers as a 'vintage' jeans skirt (see last photos) was not what we were wearing out on the streets.

You know why yours are not 'vintage' style jean skirts, Zara? Because we made our skirts from worn out jeans, and THIS is what we got. Protesting for you young'uns, I sewed one up last night to demonstrate, peacefully. What a nostalgia trip for me, but someone had to waste a few hours at her machine for the sake of garment history.

Notice what separates the true guerillas from the Zara suburban wannabe's?—not just the soft, worn uneven denim, acquired from hours of sit-ins, but also the signature inserted gore rescued from the leftover legs, the telltale pointed jog at the front and back where the leg piece was laid over the gore and the very essential not-quite-even hemline. (Ours were made on the floor of commune living rooms or in dorms on campus, not factories in Asia.)

Here are some other authentic 'wow's' from the web.

Now that I myself am vintage, I'm happy to see a great look return. But Zara, please learn Recycling Fashion from true vets of the sewing wars.

 Yours, Zara, are not 'vintage' jeans skirts or even 'vintage style.' They're sad, spanking new A-line denim skirts, period. Go golfing in it, or maybe devise a new software program in it.

But please refrain from false advertising, Zara. Or I will do my Joni Mitchell imitation outside your shop in protest. That'll give your buyers pause indeed.