We’re well into spring. Do you have your spring wardrobe together? No? Well, here are some suggestions for items you might gather up on this last weekend of April.

PEPLUMS are back. Or, more accurately, they are now joining us from the 80s. The peplum, in case you don’t know, is an over-skirt. So, if it’s attached to a full skirt, it’s a tiny skirt that only grew partway down.

You can get skirts with peplums or shirts/jackets with peplums – it doesn’t matter what your peplum is attached to, as long as it springs out from around your hips and makes them look wide. Which is what you’ve always wanted, right? To look wider than you are?

SEE-THROUGH PURSES are the must-have accessory. This makes it much easier for strangers to assess so many things about you – if you have anything worth stealing, if you have any spare change  and if you’re on prescription drugs.

If I wanted to be all English major about this, I would say that the see-through bag is a response to our ever-more-transparent society. We overshare online and now we can overshare with fashion. Nothing is off-limits!

TINY SHORTS are not for everyone. Wondering if they’re for you? Stand in front of a mirror and look at your thighs. Can you see light between them even when you’re standing with legs together? Then you can wear tiny shorts outside your home. If your thighs touch (which most of ours do) think about a lovely skirt instead.

Opinions on shorts vary widely anyway. Some are of the opinion that shorts should go away after the age of 16. Some, like me, believe shorts are reserved for specific occasions, such as exercising or perhaps watching TV on a very hot night when you can’t move or if you’re sitting in your backyard pulling weeds out of a garden. And some are of the opinion that shorts should go everywhere, even to work. Which makes me shudder.

ETHNIC JEWELRY continues to excite the fashion world and shoppers at Chico’s alike. Since we’ve had “ethnic” jewelry for awhile, we need to up the ante now. Our ethnic jewelry needs to be BIG and have as many goo-daws hanging from it as possible.

A piece needs to encompass brass, bone, stone, gems, recycled plastic bags, rubber and wire to be cool. If it hangs down to one’s navel, that’s also cool, but it should weigh at least 7 pounds and cause one to worry about structural damage to one’s spine.

By the way, I’m not sure if there is anything quite so sad as marked-down, unsold, partially broken ethnic jewelry pieces tossed in a bin at the end of a season. All that fashion hopefulness dashed against the rocks and tossed aside.

HIGH-WAISTED SWIM BOTTOMS have overtaken those tiny bikini bottoms of yore. It used to be that bikini bottoms almost grazed the pubic bone; now they are pulled up tight, obscuring the navel. It’s as if a designer who had never been to JC Penney before wandered into their underwear department, picked up an XXL pair of panties and had an epiphany.

Part of this is our continuing obsession with all things mod, 60s and Mad Men. The bikinis have that early-to-mid-60s look suitable for women not driven to remove every last strand of pubic hair. Women back then had bush, plain and simple. It’s not a bad look for concealing stomach flab either – the higher waist provides a panel of fabric perfect for keeping that roll in check rather than having it loll over the waistband.

On the other hand, the CROPPED TOP, is on the rebound. Most of us haven’t given it any love since, oh, maybe the early 1990s, if ever. But it showed up in many spring collections this year (notice that crop tops advocate showing off the navel, in contrast with the swim bottoms). I consider it one of those “wishful thinking” trends that designers try to put forth.

“We really hope that you’ll all start taking the crop top seriously,” they say.

“Hmmm…” the sane among us say.

Or maybe I should say the sane among us over the age of 25. I saw a 19-year-old wearing tight jeans and a crop top and it was OK on her. I mean, she was about five-feet tall, had a pixie-ish haircut and was prone to giving people spontaneous hugs, so you get the picture.

If you are under 25, a yogi or a ballet dancer, you can wear a crop top. OK, maybe you have to be all those things at once.

And, finally, make sure you have some CRAZY PRINT JEANS or PANTS in your closet. The trend towards jeans in bright colors has now morphed into a trend for crazy patterns on your jeans. I like a lot of the jeans I see in photographs and in catalogs, maybe because they are worn by skinny ladies with long legs that can be a canvas for curlicues, flowers and geometric shapes.

But I fear these going the way of pin-striped or acid wash jeans and becoming that article of clothing in your closet you’re deeply embarrassed about three months later. And  they are the pair of pants you can really only wear once every two or three weeks (not like those dark jeans you secretly wear every other day) because they are so memorable. I know what I’m talking about – I once had a pair of jeans that basically had a line graph pattern on them – lines going horizontal and vertical to form squares. These lines were in a rainbow of colors. I loved these jeans, so I wore them all the time and people noticed. And when I say “people,” I mean 5th graders. Fifth graders noticed. So don’t think your co-workers won’t.

While you’re out shopping this weekend, look for these other trends you may want to embrace:

Nautical stripes, preferably on a t-shirt with a boatneck

Peter pan collars

Oxford shirts with a slim cut

Skinny high riser jeans in solid colors

Neon purses, bags, satchels