Once upon a time, as I was saying last week, you could flip through the fall fashion magazines hoping to find a wear-to-work jacket, or a replacement for your down-on-its-luck winter coat. But now that so many of the things in them are fantastical, not to mention fantastically expensive, you're more likely to be looking — if you look at all — for ideas:

1. What looks good to you?

2. Which of the looks that appeal might already be lurking in the depths of your closet in some form or other? Which ones might you be able to duplicate at a flea market, or borrow from a husband or boyfriend who probably won't even notice, or track down in a thrift shop, or improvise somehow?

It's a little like rummaging around at a church jumble sale: What catches your eye and what could you do with it?

For instance, all the vertiginous platform shoes with a million thick straps made me think I might dig out an old pair of Wolky (they make "shoes designed for walking," www.wolky.com) black suede sandals that close with four velcro straps up past the ankle, maybe wear them with bright socks or tights by way of participating in the "pop of neon" trend. Also, there's a pair of vintage Red Cross peep toes with chunky heels that I bought on eBay last year — and promptly snapped one ankle strap. Maybe I'll figure out how to fix them.

There are a lot of boots with extra straps and buckles. Would it look too silly if I wrapped a couple of leather belts from estate sales around the ankles of my old sheepskin Timberlands? Or is that sort of guerrilla fashionista approach best left to teenagers?

This has to be about the 97th time around for leopard prints — and that's not counting the leopards wearing them — so no wonder most of them look like walking cliches. A few weeks ago, The New York Times Sunday Styles section suggested that snakeskin prints are "a fresher, more interesting alternative." But I think black leopard spots on dark gray leggings might work, or dark brown spots on black tights. Keeping the colors dark should keep them from looking tacky and obvious, and also dial back the bulbousness effect on your legs.

InStyle says I should leave the full-length sable in the closet, and cozy up to furry accents, like a cute faux fur scarf that's $11 at Uniqlo. Only the only Uniqlo store in the U.S. is in New York; the rest are in Japan.

Nobody's saying it's an official trend, but there seem to be a lot of blouses around this fall, especially ones with bows at the neck. (Remember blouses? They were what women wore before T-shirts.) There's a pretty one in black lace with a chiffon bow and cuffs in the White House Black Market ads in several of the magazines. There's a pale pink with a narrower tie in O The Oprah Magazine's tutorial on how to wear fall trends in age-appropriate ways. I've wanted a blouse with what fashion editors used to call a pussycat bow since the last time they were a trend, in the fall of 2000. I even bought a Vogue pattern to make one, but that's as far as it got. This could be the year.

Come to think of it, if I made one in the right shade of blue, I could wear it with the blue and gray striped shawl I started knitting in the fall of 1998 when gray was the new black. I bought a couple of gray skirts, too. But, unfortunately, by the time I finished the shawl, black had clawed its way back to being black. It's still going strong, but gray does seem to be having a small resurgence this fall. And I still have those skirts and the shawl.

There's a lot of talk about white shirts, which (as always) are looking very sharp. On the bright side, pretty much everybody already has a couple. But wouldn't it be nice to have one that comes out of the dryer looking as if it had been magically ironed by dryer sprites? (Lands' End, www.landsend.com, had wrinkle-resistant shirts on sale for $7.99 last time I checked, but not in my size.)

Both Vogue and Harper's Bazaar have major layouts reviving styles of the 1940s. I love the '40s hairdos and the Dolce & Gabbana hats in Vogue: They remind me of Mrs. Miniver and old photos of my grandmother and my aunts. But I think I have to pass. Phyllis Feldkamp, the longtime fashion editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin, told me once that you can't wear vintage past a certain age because "people just think you're wearing your old clothes." They assume you can't afford new ones and feel sorry for you — instead of being impressed by your originality, with-it-ness and fashion savvy.

I'm even less enthusiastic about the sudden passion for motorcycle jackets and almost anything else involving a lot of black leather and studs. You have to be young and dewy to wear tough chic well. The elderly, leathery motorcycle-mama look is a whole different kettle of fish.

The problem with the purported revival of sharply squared or pagoda-peaked 1980s shoulders is a little different: I bought some last time, and they looked fine for maybe a year, and then they looked ridiculous. Such a waste.

There's a lot of suits-are-back talk. Which is fine if you're, say, a funeral director or a lady who lunches. I don't see it working for me.

In a post to www.wornthrough.com, a blog for fashion scholars, Lauren Michel, who teaches fashion design and merchandising at Monterey Peninsula College in Northern California, recommends that teachers of design should add black opaque tights, which "all the fashionistas in Europe were wearing last winter," to their classroom wardrobes. Sounds good to me — but don't they already have some? It's hard to think of something so basic as a trend, but I guess it is, along with patterned tights, leggings, skinny jeans, narrow pants, narrow over-the-knee boots, etc. (Pleated trousers are an oft-cited alternative.)

Bear in mind that black opaques are universally flattering, work better than sheer hose with both long skirts and miniskirts since they continue the line rather than interrupting it, and are more wearable, less startling and a lot less expensive than the piratical over-the-knee boots fashion editors are head-over-heels over.

Write to Patricia McLaughlin c/o Universal Press Syndicate, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106 or patsy.mcl@verizon.net.