It walks like spring and talks like spring, but it sure doesn’t feel quite like spring… not yet. Still, I’ve left the house a total of six times with my ankles bared and no socks inside my shoes (and remember I’m the one who advocated for stick-on feet-warmers as a fashion accessory), so something’s in the air.

Cruising through the recent fall shows in Paris (do you have the style.com app for iPhone?? holy mother of all slideshow time-sucks), I noticed that Balmain’s fall 09 is pretty much just like its spring 09. Second verse same as the first… funny how often that applies—in like, every discipline. But, ah, well, it makes sense considering that designer Christophe Decarnin’s stuffed shoulders, ripped jeans, and St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club military jackets from that show (spring 09’s) are on real-life, off-runway bods of every hot model and editor — and thanks to the knock-off process, just about everyone else. But … well, where was I going with this?

Oh, right, shopping your closet—-because only a very, very, very select few can actually shop Balmain. When I saw this image of our dear friend Natasha, (stolen from style.com) I knew what to do with a pair of A.P.C. skinnies that never quite felt long enough: I’ll lob them off. Or maybe just pull them up and go with that slightly scrunched, bunched look around the knees.

So while you’re going through the archives looking for baggy jeans that might work for the rolled-up boyfriend thing, take a look at your skinniest ones and see if you can’t update a little by cropping them, or at least making them look cropped. It’ll be a lot easier than trying to bleach and rip your way to a pair of Decarnin’s ruined-look ones, and personally, I’m just not into the whole tattered thing.

DIY skinny shorties: Super simple, and these days, there’s nothing quite like getting two looks out of one.