6. the popsicle; A squared-off tunic and leggings create a geometric shape.

Byline: Florence Kane

My predicament started in March, soon after all those leggings walked down the fall runways, peeping out from under tunics and little dresses. This was long before I thought I'd have to consider buying some-or so I naively assumed.

Leggings. They were impossible to ignore: Derek Lam opened his show with a long gray cowl-neck sweater over black leggings and little black boots; Versace teamed them with sexy minis; Alber Elbaz did heather-gray ones with a black satin coat at Lanvin; Lacroix had a hot-pink floral dress that pretty much screamed for a pair. It was obvious that the short dress and covered leg was an important "look" for fall.

This was good news to me. I'd been wearing black tights under little dresses for the past three autumns and winters, and lately had been heading toward a complete skinny-leg overhaul, purging my denim drawer of everything trouser- and boot-cut (how those two words now make me cringe!) and introducing some JBrand cigarette jeans along with a pair of Gap stovepipes that had curiously and most unfortunately vanished from stores when I went back to buy some more.

What I hadn't tried yet was a pair of actual

legging-leggings, but they did seem like part of a natural progression. My hopes for trying out the look, though, were almost dashed as soon as I decided to give them a go.

Last March, just two weeks after New York's fall collections debuted, I found myself in a Pratt Institute classroom attempting to give a class that a good friend of mine was teaching an overview of the workings of a fashion magazine. But the gratifying (for me, at least) hour of talking and answering questions came with a pang of leggings angst, the result of a simple question: "What are the trends that came out of Fashion Week?" one of the budding writers inquired.