The red leather slim

This season, Isabel Marant may have swapped her "boho" (bourgeois-bohemian) inspirations for a more rockabilly look, but this did not affect her value in the eyes of her label's aficionados. As proof, there is already talk that the red leather slims (launched during her last show) may be one of the must-have's of the new season.

Whereas we may have just resolved ourselves to slipping into a pair of oh-so-Chloé wide pants and other retro flares as of September, there are some fashionistas who are already starting trouble by wearing one of the Isabel Marant's Fall/Winter 2011 collection's headline pieces -- one that has nothing to do with the so-called inevitable 70s.

Having studiously consulted the fashion predictions in their favorite magazines, the majority of the fashionistas were on the point of burning their leather slims on the bonfire of the trends. This auto-da-fé would have surely taken place if it had not been for the Parisian darling designer breaking up the party with her terribly 50s, poppy-red leather slims.

The 1950s, seemingly difficult to access until now (given the Louis Vuitton and Prada collections), now appears more appealing. There is nothing like a Capri pant, remastered in a rock-n-roll attitude, to make us want to become Grease's Sandra Dee.

The fashion landscape for the new season might well be divided into two camps: on one side, we will have the 30-somethings who will give themselves body and soul to Chloé; on the other, the young women who will unhesitatingly snub the camel-brick-&-Co. wave in favor of the 50s rockabilly option proposed by Marant.

The combination of a leather 3/4 slim pant - red for the more reckless, black licorice for the rest - with an American student style jacket, finished off with a pair of fine pumps could very well become the new silhouette of today's post-adolescent.

With one exception: if the journalist and blogger, Caroline Blomst, can be credited with being among the first to wear the famous red leather slims, she hardly succeeds in reproducing the Marant effect that was so appealing on the designer's models during the show. In order to obtain this look, we propose instead a slightly less snug pair of ultra skinny cigarette pants. And if leather is not to your taste (nor in your budget), a pair of red jeans rolled up to the calf will also do perfectly well.