There’s a lot of hyperventilation in fashionable circles these days over the autumnal arrival of the smoking slipper. That’s a loafer, unless you’re fancy.

“Smoking slipper” is even a shopping category now on Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus’ websites. Since when did smoking get a fashionable connotation? Did smoking get its groove back? I blame those smoke-less electric cigarettes. And the Great Gatsby. And Lindsay Lohan, just because it’s fun to blame her for many things.

Let’s peruse the trend. These are the smoking slippers of my dreams: Valentino, $795, Neiman Marcus, and clearly not happening.

First runners-up — black and tan and tasseled and perfect — save the $238 price tag, J. Crew. They’d go with everything, you know?

These are a GET: a knockoff of the DelToro slippers that started this all and the Alexander McQueen ones that came next. So Yale. $125, at Footnotes — a great online shoe store, but if you’re ever in Napa, DO go to the actual store. It’s a fun one.

Burgundy-red bliss by Marc Jacobs, $275, Nordstrom. (They also come in a deeper burgundy shade – yum.)

Leopard smoking slippers – PLUS studs. $99, Nordstrom.

Nine West classic and cute: $69.

Topshop studs, $56:

Classic enough to see you through this trendy season – and many others hence: at Nordstrom, Dolce Vita, $159:

Gap has brilliant versions under $50 — in calfhair and suede,even — to assauge any guilt about sneaking into this season for a drag or a puff.

Sam Edelman, $145 at Lori’s Shoes — my favorite shoe store in Chicago — in black and blush.

The ones I will probably buy: $139, Nordstrom, by Steve Madden.

And these are the shoes that started the craze: velvet monogrammed blue-blood creations from DelToro. I have wanted them for approximately 1.5 years. They are $455. In my mind, I’m wearing them in a Connecticut cabin in a Ralph Lauren ad, and Nacho is reading me Emerson, while wearing a matching pair.

Will you be delving into this world of velvet carcinogen chic?