Where Have All The Normal Pants Gone?

PARIS: Harem pants, ballooning from thigh to ankle; Indian dohti styles with a crotch dropping to the knees; jodhpurs and rompers or longer, baggy bloomers are just some of the new looks for the spring season.

So where have all the regular trousers gone? Gone to fashion, every one. The sleek, sensible pants that are - or were - symbolic of women's lives running parallel to men's have been swamped by designer versions.

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This HuffPost editor has to admit: we have an unhealthy affinity for everything that Suzy Menkes writes (she even agreed with our thoughts on Marc Jacobs!), but she may have actually lost us with this endorsement of crazy pants.

We'll give her an A for Effort for her attempt to rationalize them...

The best way to take these fashion forays is to accept them as fun summer dressing. Harem pants in lightweight fabrics look good as après-beachwear with a simple tank top. Rompers and baggy all-in-one jump suits, which have come back with the 1980s vibe, are variations on vacation dressing.

And she almost manages to make a case for jodhpurs, which are quite possibly the most unflattering pant known to womankind.

Jodhpurs are probably the most sophisticated pants. They seem tricky because most women are not longing to enhance the spread of their thighs. Yet they can be both urban and cool in luxury versions, as in Ralph Lauren's tautly tailored jacket with a wide curve of jodhpur; or pale crocodile horsey pants from Hermès, worn with a billowing blouse.

Our thoughts? We went skinny. And then we went flared. But we'll leave everything in between to the models and the sale racks (which is where, we guarantee, these styles will end up.)

Now you can tell us yours...