Nitty Gritty Bang Bang

It weighs in at close to three pounds, and looks about as pretty as a catcher's mask. Nonetheless, the most popular--if not downright explosive--accessory that is circling around these days is the bullet belt.

Made of brass cartridges, linked together and fastened by several dummy bullets at the front, the belt first turned up in London this fall. There, two sharp-eyed American women zeroed in on it. Francine Farkas, wife of the president of the Alexander's Department Stores in New York, arranged to import the British version, presently selling out (at $25). Caren Ross, a Philadelphia housewife, bought the belt "purely for fun," found friends offering as serious a price as $100 for it. Promptly, Mrs. Ross set up shop in a corner of her husband's electronics factory, is currently selling close to 500 belts a week through East Coast boutiques and Manhattan's Bloomingdale's. Socialite Ethel Scull buckled one over a black-jersey jumpsuit, appeared at a black-tie party looking less bonny than Clyde; Model Carole Mallory wore hers to an art auction and was an instant succes fou--she got immediate attention from the security guards.

Equally attentive was the U.S. Treasury Department, which last week recommended that manufacturers equip the belts with dummy bullets, assured to be inoperable, instead of with whole cartridges (theoretically convertible into live ammunition without benefit of license). Otherwise, the latest accessory of the Decadent Chic might just manage to circumvent its wearers by landing them not on the Ten Best Dressed list, but on the Ten Most Wanted.

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