Are Lace Blouses, Like, Cool Now?

It seems like Isabel Marant has a knack for making things cool that were otherwise not. 

Whether this be by the strength of her design or her name, I don't know. 

What I do know, is that a lace blouse worn in any other era would construe soft femininity and freedom (i.e. Elizabeth Bennet or drugs).

marant fall 2012 

elin kling

But there's something about the recent Marant lace phenomenon that's too cool to put into words, right?

Is it the box shape? The higher collar?

The ironically overt femininity that is hence non feminine in today's strange opposite-day society?

(like, heeled tennis shoes, really?)

marant via the man repeller

blouse: not Izzy (free people)(tank, 3/4 sleeve), , pants: Anthropologie

Hard to tell. 

What irks me is my high school affinity for hippie clothes is proving prematurely intelligent, but not in the cool, 
oh-I-have-that-from-when-I-was-young way, 

but in the,

shit-I-threw-all-my-hippie-crap-out-because-it-was-suddenly-very-not-menswear-esque-and-super-uncool way that's really hard to come to terms with. 

Anyhoot, 

Just like the aforementioned tennies of the wedged sort, 

the blouses of the lace lot are having a little heyday of their own. 

It seems like, Marant or not, lace (and by association, crochet) are suddenly more than just pretty - they're "city" appropriate in an urban way they weren't before.

But why?

Is it because a big designer decided to put her name on them?
Or is it just one more trend that's found an interestingly (ironic) incarnation in NYC?

Cheers.

Addendum: Lace blouses were always gorgeous, yes, OBVI obvi obvi, 
but were they always urban cool??