PFW diary: It’s hip to be square at Chanel, YSL, Ungaro, Giambattista Valli, Stella McCartney and Chloé

“This is so confusing,” said the flummoxed woman beside me at Chanel. She later said that it was by the two-way traffic on the runway, but it just as easily could have been the abundance of silhouettes.

This week in Paris, pants have ranged from legging tight at Chanel and Ungaro to palazzo wide at Yves Saint Laurent and Chloé. Skirts have been mini (Giambattista Valli) and ankle grazing (Chanel), with everything in between (Stella McCartney).

“It’s a season of great choice,” remarked Barbara Atkin, vice-president of fashion direction at Holt Renfrew.

Just take Chanel, for instance. Gothic capes swung over mini-skirted suits, little trapeze jackets and rounded skirts were perched above legging-tight pants, fluid tuxedos had sloppy rolled cuffs and jumpsuits were as roomy as something a mechanic might wear but done in lumpy tweed or delicate lace.

If there is a common thread to the fall 2011 season in the city of lights, it is a squareness, sometimes softened with rounded shoulders or a cocoon-shaped coat. You can mentally draw a box around the many drop waist dresses, stiff sweaters and bomber jackets. Even jumpsuits mostly fall straight from the armpits, bypassing the waist. Go ahead and have that second macaroon.

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