The topic of leggings and skinny jeans tends to polarize people into the “I love ‘em” or “I hate ‘em” camps, but one thing’s for certain – skinny is in. It’s all about the silhouette this Fall and God bless the ladies with the bodies to rock the lean look, but if you just can’t wrap your head around saran-wrapping your legs in cloth, we have an alternative that has the potential to look good on any and every figure: stretch boots.

Stretch boots are a great way to get the look this season and still keep your confidence intact. In very recent memory, when this style has been produced for the masses it has generally been in tragic, square-toed faux leather boots topped off (or should I say bottomed?) with low, squat, uninspired heels and generally relegated to shelves decorated with red-stickers in bargain basement shops. But for the foreseeable future, that ends now.

Designers from Rene Caovilla to Stella McCartney (doing the cool faux-leather kind, natch) and Donald J. Pliner have gorgeous, stretchy, and thus incredibly comfy boots appearing in their Fall 09 lineups. Perhaps what we love most about this style is that you can get the sex-pot look courtesy of a pair of vampy, over-the-knee stretch boots just as easily as you can go for a practical, office-appropriate look or a drop-dead gorgeous pair fit for an evening gala. Highlighting only the parts you prefer, of course.