The return of skinny pants

I should be finishing posts about India, or writing about my friend Alli's marriage this weekend to a wonderful guy named Chris -- but I've been neglecting an important topic now for more than a month.

It's skinny pants, and their sad return to fashion.

In a look most recently reminiscent of the 1980s -- a decade of fashion that really ought not be reincarnated -- women have been marching down runways, popping off magazine pages and dancing on my TV screen this fall in pants that hug the hips, the butt and, yes, the ankles.

Who decided this look should come back? In what anorexic corner of fashion did someone get the bright idea to give young American women one more thing to feel self-conscious about?

I wanted to write about this before I left San Francisco, after I passed a window display one evening for the skinny pant. The word "skinny" itself is bad enough when associated with fashion. But retailers such as Nordstrom are making its use even worse, by adding statements including "the ultra-lean silhouette is red hot for fall" to advertising. (Let us not even get started about the concept of cigarette leg jeans.)

Ultra-lean? So "lean" -- containing little or no fat, according to Merriam-Webster -- isn't good enough any more? What would I have to do to be ultra-lean? And does this mean my ultra-curvy silhouette is totally out?

That's hardly news, of course. In my lifetime, my shorter, stockier body type has never been very fashionable. Neither are my freakishly large calf muscles, born of muscular genes a tendency to walk on my toes. Even straight-leg pants look too tight on me.

But even women who comfortably wear a size 6 -- and walked on both heel and toe from a wee age -- look silly in skinny pants. And many with any curves at all look even worse. I was just reminded of this as I watched the usually fashionable Nelly Furtado dance about on Live with Regis and Kelly. Today, Furtado wore blue skinny pants -- and her hips have never looked fatter.

Is there anyone that skinny pants do flatter?

Someone, please, put us out of this misery, and let skinny pants die a final, unresurrectable death. I'll put up with halter tops, stilettos and mini skirts, but the skinny pant takes it too far.

For spring, maybe fashion moguls could do something nice and bring back, say, the boatneck top, or penny loafers, minus platform heels.