India, July 31 -- Some fashion comebacks make sense. Others make you pause. Dresses over jeans belong firmly in the latter camp - at least at first glance. But the once-divisive Y2K pairing is back, reworked through today's love for relaxed denim, fluid silhouettes and effortless layering. The result? A surprisingly modern way to get more mileage out of your dresses.

Dress over jeans? Yes, really. Once a quintessentially Y2K styling move, the combination is having another fashion moment. But the idea itself is hardly new.

"The dress-over-jeans moment isn't new; it's borrowed. South Asian dressing has layered kurtas over churidars for generations. What's different now is the 2000s lens through which the West is rediscovering it," says ce...