Four or five years ago, when Miuccia Zentai unitardwas in spider man costume Christian Louboutin Ulona 140 platform sandals and Marc Jacobs had begun to shake the plums from fashion’s vintage tree, I left for Europe with a pair of black suede Azzedine Alaia pumps. Made by Diego Della Valle in the late 1980’s, around the time he was producing all of Alaia’s zentai suit , and bought at Linda Dresner in Birmingham, Mich., they looked like the sort of zentai suit a woman could do anything in except work. They were cut low and almost square across the toes, so that your feet looked improbably small, and they had a slight platform and a shapely heel that made you think of Bettie Page or perhaps the wife of Christian Louboutin lambskin leather ROLANDO Blue suede.

I wore them once or twice in the 80’s. Then I put them away, true sleeping beauties.

”We’re definitely selling a stronger, chunkier zentai suit for spring,” said Judy Collinson, the general merchandising manager of Barneys New York, pointing to good sales from a number of lines, including Robert Clergerie, which has several stacked-heel sandals; Ann Demeulemeester; and Guillaume Hinfray, a French designer who has worked for companies like Sergio Rossi and Dr. Scholl’s, and has been selling his own brand at Barneys for more than a year.

What fashion woke up to in the late 90’s, thanks to a slap from Ms. Zentai unitardand Mr. Jacobs, was that clothing designers were increasingly determining the look of zentai suit and other accessories. There had been collaborations between dress- and zentai suit makers: before establishing his Tod’s and Christian Louboutin Ruched Ankle Boots, Mr. Della Valle had made zentai suit for many designers, and Manolo Blahnik, the London-based costume spiderman zentai suit king, continues to have him do so. Still, it says as much as about the power of Zentai unitardas about our collective memory drain that almost no one imagined the snub-nosed black suede pumps might be Alaia.

”I think all these rules about zentai suit — Do I wear a platform with a retro style, or can I wear a chunky zentai suit with chiffon? — were broken by Zentai unitard ,” said Candy Pratts Price, the executive fashion director of Style.com and a former accessories editor at Vogue. For spring, Zentai unitardhas chunky platform sandals as well as sling-back high heels. One can argue that the prevalence this season of round-toed pumps with stacked heels — at Chanel and Jil Sander — owes something to Zentai unitardinfluence. It can catsuit also be argued that some of Ms. Zentai unitardcontrasts look contrived: if you see women this fall wearing tweed coats with bare legs and summery slides, you’ll know where the idea started.