When fall Fashion Week, 2009, kicked off in earnest this past weekend, I was nervous. The economy is in its worst shape since the Great Depression; glossy magazines are folding faster than bad hands of cards; clothes are so slow to move out of stores their prices are slashed by as much as 70 percent — even at Bergdorf Goodman — and at least half the people I know are wondering how much longer they’ll be keeping their jobs. So would designers send out drab sackcloths (maybe even covered in ashes), in keeping with most of our moods? Or would they send out over-the-top glitz or frothy confections that no one in their right mind would dare put on even if they could afford them?

The good news is that the smartest of them — ranging from the almost always pitch-perfect Carolina Herrera, who sent out a spot-on collection on Monday morning, to the biggest surprise (to me, anyway), the former Posh Spice, Victoria Beckham — got it. They sent out beautifully cut, perfectly understated clothes in clean shapes or figure-flattering curves that revealed very little skin but a whole lot of style and sophistication and confidence. I can run a board meeting in Carolina’s terrific dolman-sleeve jackets and sexy (but not too sexy) pencil skirts. I can face my husband’s ex-in-laws at my stepdaughter’s wedding in one of Beckham’s well-constructed dresses. These are clothes in low-key palettes, with few subdued jewel tones thrown in, that will not date. At a time when very little else is, they are clothes for the long term.

Click here for photos from Carolina Herrera’s fall 2009 fashion show.

Before I get into more specifics, let me say that I am from the Deep South, a region of the country where (out of necessity for the longest time) keeping up appearances is something of an art form.

Remember Scarlett yanking down those curtains? She might have been forced to ask for help, but she was going to look damned good doing it. There is such a thing as pride, after all, and the last thing you want to do if you are poor (or at least a whole lot poorer than you once were) is to look it.

Most of us still remember the unfortunate grunge era of the early 1990s. It was an understandable reaction to the excess of the 1980s, to the endless parade of Lacroix bubbles, Scaasi confections and new-money socialites straight out of Edith Wharton, outdoing themselves gown by gown. But the thing about grunge was that only rich people wore it. People in shaky economic circumstances or jobs that demanded the look for real aspired to clean up and look better.

Right now, most of us want to FEEL better — more secure, more confident than we actually do. No matter what else is happening (or perhaps because of it) I still have to get out every day and hustle. I have books to promote, stories to report, speeches I’m contracted to give. As board chair of a fledgling (and therefore very poor) museum in New Orleans, I have to travel around the country trying to raise some money for the place. Nobody wants to see me, either behind a podium or with hat in hand, in a sackcloth. They want to see me calm, cool and collected, projecting whatever force of personality I can muster. To do that, I need armor, even if I can only afford a well-chosen piece or two.