totally waisted; Belts-in tons of shapes, sizes, and styles-are today's smartest quick fix.

Byline: Sarah Mower

It's quite obvious that we need only two things to change the way we look this season: a belt and a pair of platforms. Voila, a new silhouette. That's the kind of clarity I go for in fashion, those rare seasons when all the slipping and sliding of various diffuse trends clears, and something doable suddenly snaps into focus. No doubt about it, one of those big ten-year fashion watersheds is upon us: in this case, the final departure of the hipster/stilettos line (instigated by Tom Ford at Gucci and Alexander McQueen around 1996) and the arrival of the cinched waist/platform sole (courtesy of Stefano Pilati at YSL, Roland Mouret-before he quit-and, with fabulous emphasis, Alber Elbaz at Lanvin). All those tight pencil skirts, stretch belts, and fierce abstract patent platforms had me practically running from the Lanvin show, frantically calculating how quickly I could copy the look with what I already own.

And that's another exciting thing: Getting into the belt-shoe revolution does not necessitate the buying of a whole new wardrobe. It's more about restyling what you have: dresses, pencil skirts, blouses, pants, sweaters. Do it right, and everything you have looks fresh again. In other words, this has all the qualifications of a look that's going to work. (Unless all you own is boho stuff . . . in which case, sorry, burn it, and start again.)

To specifics. The platform part is easy: Go to Miu Miu, Christian Louboutin, Bruno Frisoni, Chloe; put them on, get five inches taller. The right belt is the crucial element that clicks the proportion change into place, punctuating the sentence that says "I'm pulled together." The new beltedness requires homework, though-a fact that dawned on me when I went back to pore over pictures of the spring collections and examine the ways it can be done. There are wide

fifties-meets-eighties belts; belts like obis; skinny belts and jokey belts with gigantic arty buckles; New Wave patent belts; metal and plastic and raffia; and cloth belts that are actually cummerbunds. The single thing that unifies them is that they are never for wearing around the hips. That's gone. Last summer, belts upped and migrated north. One way or another, they all mark the midsection-the zone of the body that, during the past decade of bosom-and-bumster domination, has gone curiously missing from our consciousness.

What this means is that an entire generation has grown up unacquainted with its waist . . . while the rest of us haven't known its whereabouts for years.

And now I come ...