International Herald Tribune
10 Tuesday, May 9, 2006
By Jessica Michault
PARIS
here must have been something
T in the water at the collective fash-
ion watering hole this season.
Designers from New York to Paris felt
compelled to go in a radical new direc-
tion to create a fresh silhouette for the
modern woman. Gone are the sexy, low-
slung skinny jeans and extreme décol-
leté. Instead designers have zeroed in
Forget the low-slung
look. The waist is
now fashion’s center
point: Designs by
Lanvin, left, Marc
Jacobs, below, and
Dries Van Noten,
below left.
Focusing
squarely on
the waist
on fashion’s center point — the waist.
Through high-waisted pants, skirts
with extra large waistbands and super-
size belts, designers have dictated a new
erogenous zone that, instead of expos-
ing copious amounts of skin and thong
underwear, entices by covering up.
‘‘Décolleté has been going lower and
lower over the years and it finally hit
the waist,’’ jokes the designer Alber El-
baz, who created for the house of Lan-
vin the ‘‘Geisha’’ look with its obi belt
STY LE
for summer.
In truth, for Elbaz, like many other
designers, the waist has constantly
been a starting point.
‘‘I always emphasized the waist as a
sensual and suggestive element of a
woman’s body over the years,’’ Elbaz
says. ‘‘Décolleté is about exposing and
unveiling the body, which can be dan-
gerously vulgar if uncontrolled. I find
emphasizing a woman’s waist more dis-
creet yet seductive, in contrast, to the
**
Helping to accentuate
the waist this season
are supersize belts,
like Givenchy’s
weightlifter belt,
below, and its wide
leather belt, at right,
and Fendi’s buckle
belt, at left.
Like a piece of
jewelry, belts
are embroidered
with decorative
motifs like
YSL’s, at left, or
bejeweled as in
obvious.’’ Alexander
This movement away from the sexu- McQueen’s
al to the sensual has been an undercur- prizef ighter
rent in fashion for the past few seasons. belt at right.
From ‘‘granny chic’’ to the return of the
color black last winter, attraction and
desire today are in what’s not seen but
only hinted at. And central to this new
silhouette is the waist.
One of the key ways designers are ac-
centing the waist is by topping off an
outfit with an oversize belt. This gives
the body a strong shape while also an-
choring an outfit and giving it weight
and power.
The emphasis on the belt is good
news for those of us with a thick waist
or with no waist whatsoever. By belting
up we begin to understand what it is
like to have an hourglass figure that
elongates the midsection and defines
the body.
Moving from a sliver of a belt
wrapped around the hips to a swath of
leather that encases the waist, the su-
persize belt has become a dominant
fashion accessory.
And this summer
there are a myriad of
materials and styles to
choose from. These in-
clude the cloth cum-
merbund at Valentino,
the weightlifter belts at
Givenchy, the obi wrap
belt at Dries Van Noten,
the prizefighter belts at
Alexander McQueen,
and the XXL buckle belt
from Fendi; not to men-
tion the very popular
sash belt seen on a num-
ber of catwalks that can
be tied with a flourish
with an off-center bow.
‘‘I think the belt is an
element of control, de-
fining the shape; it gives
an illusion of a slimmer
silhouette, which seems
to be every woman’s de-
sire today,’’ Elbaz says.
In some cases, the su-
persize belts have be-
come an accessory not unlike a piece of
modern jewelry with different treat-
ments and trimmings to set them apart.
They are bejeweled with rhinestones,
embroidered with decorative motifs or
rough and ready with grommets and
rivets. The distinctive look of each
house’s belt can also act as a covert way
of branding, for example, the distinct-
ive scalloped edges on a Bottega Veneta
velvet belt, or the stretchy silk of a Lan-
vin obi.
Thus belts are being made into a
must-have accessory that can take
pride of place alongside the ‘‘it’’ bags
and shoes that are the bread and butter
of all the top fashion houses.
Priced between ¤250, or about $300,
and ¤1,500, brand-name belts are also a
boon for the pocketbook since skirts,
pants, dresses and jackets that have
been relegated to the back of the closet
can be updated with a big-buckle belt.
Match one with a pencil skirt, a
shirtdress or use it to give a bit of weight
to all those flowing summer en-
sembles.
There are only a few fashion staples
that can make all the difference in a
woman’s wardrobe: the perfect pant-
suit, the little black dress, the bathing
suit that magically hides all those im-
perfections, and that favorite handbag
that somehow goes with everything. Photographs by Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
Now we can add the perfect big belt. Belts can help give weight to a f lowing summer ensemble as in Bottega Veneta’s
International Herald Tribune embellished buckled belt, above, and Valentino’s cloth cummerbund, inset.