WHERE PRIM IS EDGY

Having witnessed lower and lower jeans and higher and higher shirts, the inevitable backlash has hit:

ast week, American designers showing their fall collections offered a hymn to decorum. Under the Fashion Week tents of Midtown and all around Manhattan, they turned their backs on the microminis, visible thongs, low-rider jeans and skin-baring tops that have so long dominated the runways — and the malls — in favor of high-necked dresses, prim swing coats, twin sets and narrow, knee-length skirts.

In such a blasé climate, the latest American fashions — pert skirts and prim coats, Peter Pan collars and proper tweeds, some harking back to Mamie Eisenhower's day — are refreshing and even subversive. They represent fashion's way of thumbing its nose at the status quo and simply moving on. Blouses with bows have never looked so avant-garde.

"In fashion these days, to be uptight is to be edgy," said David Wolfe, the creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion trends and whose clients include Wal-Mart and Nordstrom. Mr. Wolfe predicted that the trend would have staying power, that it would sell in stores and that it is in tune with a shift in the cultural climate.

Skin, it seems, is no longer in.