NEW YORK - 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 stock market. No need to tell Natasha Jen, who while downtown one recent weekend noticed the parade of women who were showing off their latest purchases : 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 of excitement. “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 in April 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.

“People are sick of not shopping,” said Beth Buccini, an owner of Kirna Zabete, a SoHo outpost of vanguard design, where splashy florals and abstract designs are providing a bracing antidote to months of self-imposed sobriety. “After such a miserable winter, and an even more miserable economy,” she said, “people want a little joy in their lives.”

At Ann Taylor Loft in midtown Manhattan, Lauri Cohen, a health care worker, showed off her latest find, a fragile cotton blouse covered in pink and green buds. “I’m buying all the prints and stripes I can,” Ms. Cohen said.

Tyler Elizabeth Lewis, a handbag designer, strolled around downtown recently wrapped in a coral-and-yellow paisley topper she had accessorized with a pale striped envelope bag and crocheted gloves. “Prints are unique,” Ms. Lewis said. “Their appeal is so personal that when you find one that speaks to you, you know you have to have it.”

Retail sales figures released in April showed the strongest monthly gains in a decade, with department stores reporting an average increase of 11.8 percent. “There is an enormous amount of pentup demand,” Bernard Baumohl, the chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group said in a recent interview with The New York Times, “and now it is being unleashed.”

Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst for the market research firm NPD Group, interprets the resurgence of multihued designs as an indicator of recovery. “Among the first things to be successful coming out of a recession are lively colors and patterns,” he said.

Kaitrin Cooper, an interior designer, was certainly feeling the fervor. “Oh, my gosh, I’m transported,” she said, gazing covetously at a Dries Van Noten jacket at Barneys recently. “I’m loving color and bold prints. Persimmon and chartreuse have replaced the seriously gray phase that I went through last year.

“They make fashion feel fun again, like it’s O.K. to care about it.”


By RUTH LA FERLA


PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIZABETH LIPPMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
After months of a dreary recession, New Yorkers are starting to brighten up. Signs of optimism include, from left, Natasha Jen’s Kookai dress, bright print skirts and Tyler Elizabeth Lewis’s spring coat.