Diane von Furstenberg was a single, working mother when she came up with the idea for the wrap dress in the mid-Seventies, somewhere, she famously said, "between the Pill and Aids".
It was the perfect dress for that halcyon in-between time, functional, flattering and sexy enough to wear on a date, but not so overtly that you couldn't wear it to work as well. It didn't crease much. But more importantly, you wouldn't scare your (male) boss in this dress. You were still one of the girls. Your wrap dress even afforded him a (discreet) cop of your legs and, even more discreetly, your breasts. All in the best possible taste, obviously. This was a Promotion Dress, a You Could Marry Me If You Play Your Cards Right Dress. Upon which turn of events it could then become a Mummy At Sports Day Dress. It did everything that women needed it to do.
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And what other options did women have back then? The neat little suits with their hip-hugging pencil skirts and boxy jackets, so beloved of Joan in Mad Men, had been swept aside by fashion. Post-Woodstock, post-the barricades of 1968 and pre power-suits, woman had… nothing to wear to the office.
It's a testament to the brilliance of the wrap dress that it's still relevant. Power suits turned into parodies, a mirage of emancipation - who wanted to run the risk of knocking their eye out with their own shoulder pads? Trouser suits are fabulous - on the catwalks, but they're not for every shape. As for the curve-hugger exemplified by Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress - it can be a bit full-on. And it's been done to death.
Diane von Furstenberg, pictured in a wrap dress in 1973 PHOTO: REX
We're quite weary of the wrap dress, too. You'll have noticed Boden's gone cold turkey on them, and that's instructive. Because Boden is a brand that doesn't just sell to working women, be they mothers, single or otherwise.
It sells to women who don't work, women who work part-time, women who work flat out but want a jolly, jauntily patterned dress that stretches over fluctuating tummies and hips; and they want to wear it at weekends, on dates with their husbands or tea with the in-laws.
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And that's how the wrap dress became ubiquitous and why it now looks a tad dated and tired, rather than modern, fresh and liberated. We owe it some downtime, so that it can reinvent itself and come and bail us out several years from now. That invites one small question. What the hell are we going to wear until then? I think this dress by Tucker is a contender.
Dreamt up by New York stylist Gaby Basora, Tucker began life a few seasons back as a line of patterned peasant blouses. Mono-item labels have a lot going for them - they can really perfect their product. And that's what Tucker did. Airy, silky (or chiffony), Tucker's shirts are invariably collarless, with full sleeves and floaty cuts.
If you find a print you like they're great: the perfect dressy accompaniment to jeans and skinny trousers. And now Basora has applied the same principle to dresses.
A Tucker dress has many of the same attributes of the wrap: the effortlessness, the pretty-but-efficient sleekness, and it delivers the same feminine message, neither over nor understated. It's a bit more boho in feeling than the wrap, but that's not a bad thing, especially given all the footwear around now to help you toughen or sleek it up, if that's your preference - from shiny patent courts and ankle boots to next autumn's flat riding boots.
And, in one important way, they're better than the wrap dress: they look good over flat chests. That's right, 35 years after women stopped burning their bras, someone's finally come up with a dress that looks good without one.
Read more from Lisa's column here
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