propriety values; Ladies, pack away the miniskirts and micro tees.(fashion)

One lunchtime at Le Bernardin a friend told me, "I can't bear to look at another miniskirt. I see women wearing short skirts, and I want to tell them to wear something longer. I'd never have worn this a year ago"-a Prada blouse that's modesty itself with a pleated bib front,and a dainty bow at the neck-"but now it just feels right to be covered up."

Why didn't I see this coming? After all, this is a friend who has worn her fair share of fashion's sexier offerings in her time. And meeting at Le Bernardin-starched linen, stately silverware, a serene atmosphere-definitely hinted that something was up. We normally have lunch at some hip downtown spot where there is invariably more silver on the waitress-in the form of her painfully all-too-obvious piercings-than there is on the table.

My friend is, it seems, not alone in her newfound craving to conceal, not reveal. Fall fashion has developed a distinct propensity for propriety, which means the return of elegant suits (buttoned and belted jackets; narrow, neat-as-a-new-pin skirts), evening dresses redolent of the twenties and thirties (which contrive to be both decorous and decorative), and the return of some seriously nostalgic flourishes (hats worn at a rakish angle, fur stoles and shrugs designed to nuzzle the shoulders, and-strappy sandals in the depths of winter be damned-high-heeled bootees that, in the right light, and on the right foot, could conceivably look a little kinky).

All of which spells-and not a moment too soon-the demise of blatant sexiness. "We've seen too much sexually aggressive fashion," says Karl Lagerfeld. "Too much is too much. And too much for a long time is worse." The look-a little fabric, a lot of flesh-has been so mainstream for so long that it lost the power to generate any kind of erotic appeal way back. Yet it's a look that's still being worked by desperate starlets the world over, and which is in heavy rotation in the supermarket rags. So relentless has been the attention of the tabloid scribes of the fourth estate that red-carpet dressing, except on a few savvier souls like Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, and Sarah Jessica Parker, has become one orgiastic skin show.

Yet this sober new look isn't without its sexual frisson. What it offers is a powerful sensuality, based on a silhouette that echoes the curves of the body, hinting at what lies beneath. (That said, wear the season's tightest skirts, and you'll be dropping some pretty heavy hints.) Just so you are au fait with fall's big cover-up, these are strictly verboten: Too short. Too low. Too junior. The sole exception: Too much jewelry, especially if it's in the exquisite form of estate brooches. When you're swathed in so much tweed and boucle and fur, the more sparkle the better.

"Remember that movie Peyton Place?" asks Behnaz Sarafpour. "Those women were very buttoned up, but they had all this seething passion underneath. It really is much sexier to show very little, if anything at all." "We'll never tire of sex," says Donna Karan, "but there's vulgarity and there's sensuality, and

I've always thought the latter was much more interesting." In short, you're not going to be in the mood for navel gazing-be it yours or anyone else's.