Apparently, early 20th century prostitutes are the inspiration for women’s fashion this coming spring. The season’s whiter-than-white baby-doll dresses making their way down runways in Europe and the U.S.–from houses like Chloe and Prada–are inspired by a book of photos, “Bellocq: Photographs From Storyville, the Red Light District of New Orleans,” according to The New York Times Spring 2006 Fashion Magazine.

Though prostitutes, the women portrayed in the book–in photographs taken by Ernest J. Bellocq–are (thankfully) more clothed than your average Britney Spears. It is not the first time they have been the inspiration for art-lovers over the last several decades, either–most notably, in 1970 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the movie “Pretty Baby.”

The Times describes the appeal of “Bellocq’s Women” as a “mix of eroticism and innocence” and “a mix of the heaven-sent and the hellbent,” a paradoxical combination that somehow women are supposed to pull off as the temperatures rise and winter coats come off.

So now we’ve gone from prim and proper, the overwhelming theme of the last several seasons, to prim and prostitute. Will women ever escape the virgin-whore motif? Apparently not any time soon.