FASHION, they say, is an index of change, registering shifts in confidence and mood too subtle to glean from the rise and the fall of the Dow. No need to tell Natasha Jen, who tarried on Mott Street one weekend earlier this month taking in the parade of women showing off their latest buys: effusively colorful skirts and frocks in jungly hues and covered in pansies, cheetah markings and tribal geometrics that evoked Ivory Coast.

Watching the panoply unfold, Ms. Jen, a graphic designer, felt a rush. “There’s a kind of vibrancy in all of this,” she said. “I see it as a signal of recovery.”

Wishful thinking? Maybe so. Yet Ms. Jen has a point.

The profusion of hothouse colors and patterns popping up on New York streets this month suggests a new buoyancy, as women shake off the constraints of a lingering recession and stock up on fashions more lively and vivid than they’ve seen in years.