Fashions to tie-dye for

Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg, FL, USA - Gregory Parkinson dresses fashion plates such as Brooke Shields and Shiva Rose. He's shown his collection on the runway in Los Angeles and New York. And he sells his color-drenched, vibrantly patterned clothes at some of the world's most exclusive stores.

But this day, he's elbow deep in a potful of purple dye, teaching us how to cook up spring's coolest ombre pieces at home.

"This isn't the tie-dye your parents wore," Parkinson says in his British accent.

No, it's not. The spring runways proved that tie-dye today is as artful a form of decoration as hand-beading or embroidery. The old starburst patterns are gone, replaced by irregular stripes and arcs and watery rainbow effects. There are flowing ombre cocktail dresses at Diane Von Furstenberg, complex Japanese shibori patterns on circle skirts at Thakoon and dip-dyed scarves and sheaths at Matthew Williamson, mysterious and moody. For his own collection, Parkinson gave the tie-dye trend California ease with layered parachute silk tops, dresses and skirts in rich hues with subtle dyed details.

"Tie-dye is really like jewelry," says the designer, who makes all his tie-dye pieces by hand. "It's surface decoration."

Stylish simplicity

Hippies took to tie-dye in the 1960s because it was a do-it-yourself, anti-commercial, anti-establishment venture, characterized by markings that are nearly impossible to replicate. Now, in an age when discount chains reproduce runway looks before they even hit stores, designers are turning to it again, to make things that are special, and to stay ahead of the imitators.

These are all subtle pieces, a far cry from the psychedelic spirals worn by Woodstock's revelers. The prices are a far cry from those T-shirt days, too: $400 for simple pieces and upward into four figures.