I’m beige, belted and beaming all over.

Can anyone fathom my excitement when I read the New York Times fashion week preview piece, “The Newly Uptight?”  No, because uptight people don’t get excited.  If something interests them, they demurely smile, drape their arms over something cashmere, and raise their left eyebrows ever so elegantly while asking “oh?”  Yet I, an uptight person in training only, became simply giddy at the photos of ladies bedecked with pearls in beige shifts synched at the waist.

While other fashionistas will surely gloat about the vibrant colors and patterns displayed at this weeks’ style extravaganza, I can’t help but turn my attention to something a little more boring:  the humble waistline.

Granted it has been on the rise since skinny jeans have been exaggerating rear ends, but I think it has finally reached its tailored crescendo with Ruth La Ferla’s NYT article.  Marc Jacobs channels the elegance of Grace Kelly with his svelte designs for Louis Vuitton.  The cropped jackets have the proper darts for the curvy female frame.  The straight slitted skirt (not too high) sits and accentuates the waist, and the blouse alludes to those crazy contemporary colors featured by other designers.  Of course it’s all set on on a refreshing beige palette - this is about understatement of course (Did anyone notice those blue kid gloves?).

One of my former boyfriends used to salivate over three piece pinstripe suits.  That is precisely the sentiment Jacobs addresses with this collection.  With the up-and-coming generation, there’s a refreshing need for formality.  We want to dress to go the office, or happy hour, or - as the Williamsburg hipsters demonstrate - even just outside.  With all the revolutionary changes that came with the Baby Boomers and their cohorts the GenXers, formality and decorum got tossed by the wayside.  Now some of us want a little of that Casablanca-esque style back.  

Thank you Marc Jacobs.  Thank you New York Times.  And thank you belts!  Along with the waistline comes an abundance of stylish designs from which those of us on the bottom of the fashion totem pole will benefit for years.  Can you imagine showing up to a coffee date in a Jacobs-like number?  The potential love interest would have no choice but to lean back, place a finger to the chin, raise a questioning eyebrow, and delicately exclaim, “oh!”