If anyone is to be credited–or blamed–for this off-kilter idea, it is Miuccia Prada. Last year the Italian designer dropped her trademark minimalism for the so-called “beauty of ugliness” in both her Prada line-the collection most coveted by the international glamorati these days-and in Miu Miu, her younger, more moderately priced label. Several weeks ago, when Prada appeared on CNN’s “Style” program in one of her own designs–a navy blue “techno-stretch” polyester blouse with a contrasting azure blue collar–she looked not like the most widely copied designer today but like a fast-food counter girl, circa 1976. You kept waiting for her to ask Elsa Klensch, “Do you want fries with that?” Plenty of manufacturers, not to mention designers have also jumped aboard the ugly express, without the wit that Prada brings to her collections. Instead of provocative fashion that questioned the nature of classic beauty and good taste, they pushed an esthetic that Elvis Presley would have loved.

But ugly’s days are numbered. Last week, when Prada showed her fall Miu Miu collection during the New York ready-to-wear shows, her program notes pronounced that homely is over and pretty is back. A season ago, she may have invited her customers to indulge in bad taste saucy nurses’ uniforms and see-through Velcro-tab skirts–but now Prada is enamored of the kind of well-bred young woman who favors a prim red riding coat and a pleated camel below-the-knee skirt, good-girl clothes that smack of money and refinement. There’s still a hint of bad taste patchwork ankle-strap shoes, for instance-but it’s just a hint. “It’s the good passed through the bad, so it’s different,” the designer explained after the show.

The best shows in New York were on to pretty as well, even when they found their inspiration in the 1970s. Calvin Klein and Richard Tyler were among the few who managed to evoke the Decade That Taste Forgot and still find beauty. Klein’s matte jersey dresses, geometrically colorblocked in muted shades that hugged the body, and Tyler’s flare-legged pantsuits and Cher-worthy evening gowns, beaded and cut dangerously low in back, were decidedly modern, sexy and feminine. Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs decade-hopped, too, offering ’90s fashion that recalled ’70s fashion recalling ’20s fashion–Bloomsbury for the Doonesbury generation.

As the curtain fell on the ugly look, the fashion industry let out one big “whew!” “Thank God, it’s over,” said Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue. Although her magazine was as guilty as any fashion publication in promoting the return of chartreuse Qiana, she and her staff never strayed from Chanel-egance when it came to their own wardrobes. Neither did a lot of well-dressed women. “Consumers are far more sophisticated than designers and editors make them out to be,” said Fern Mallis, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “They’re not going to do things that are embarrassing,” even in the name of fashion. European designers have already moved on to clothes that smack of ’80s-style conspicuous consumption. Last month’s Paris and Milan shows were unabashedly luxe–awash in brocade, sequins, rhinestones and that most politically incorrect of materials, real fur. As Ellin Saltzman, fashion director of Henri Bendel, put it: “If you’re going to spend a lot of money on clothes, why not look rich?”

But as long as designers revisit the ’70s-and no designer seemed able to resist the temptation during the New York shows– the danger of ugly fashion still lurks on Seventh Avenue. Prada’s many imitators, particularly youth-oriented midpriced lines like BCBG, Parallel and DKNY, are still wallowing in ugly. “What we’re seeing here is people who don’t believe in it but who are copying it and it’s quite horrible,” said Suzy Menkes, the European-based fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune. Even some more established designers are heading down the path to hideous. Kitsch was always Todd Oldham’s bag , but does anyone really need embroidered gauchos from Patrick Robinson, the designer of Anne Klein, or hot-pink bell-bottom jumpsuits from Isaac Mizrahi?

No. Not even Lisa Marie. The Vogue cover girl may have been raised in the BarcaLounger of luxury, a Southern princess in a kiddie-size white fur coat. But today, she doesn’t have a burning love for clashing patterns and riotous colors. Like so many refined women, the King’s daughter is crazy for Chanel.