I was all set to do a round-up of the AW15 Couture beauty looks, but sadly they don’t make sense on their own. Guido Palau’s modern Maid Marian hair, for example, seems too virtuous when separated from the swathes of sheer black lace and chiffon, that Valentino designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli dressed her in; so instead it’s the total looks I’ll be crushing on today.

Although my favourites offered up very different women with distinct outlooks on how to dress today, the overriding common thread was her strength.

The medieval queen – Valentino

Perfect skin by Pat McGrath and virginal hair with a touch of nobility, in the form of an understated crown, worked to balance the suggestive sheer panels in a collection that in every way was a showcase of the beauty of black lace. Even though Valentino’s woman had a naughty side, she was poised, serene, and a queen, with the finest of wardrobes.

The Power Player – Chanel

Her attitude, her velvet tuxedo, the fact that she was even in a casino, marks Chanel’s women out as a bit of a boss; nonetheless with a penchant for the finer things: sumptuous velvets, chiffon mille fuille, gilded lace and the epitome of androgynous elegance, a Bianca Jagger bridal trouser suit.

The Thinker – Giambattista Valli

Who says that being booksmart means you have to dress drably (glamourpuss Amal Clooney surely defies that rule.) Giambattista Valli’s girl was a Celine woman in Couture- refined, reserved and semi-restrained in her outlandishness; she probably reads the Gentlewoman and would be a gallerist, if she stopped wearing sunglasses with her gowns and didn’t like ostrich feathers so much.

The Traveller  – Dior

Soft, distinguished and cultivated, Raf Simons’ Dior woman was a traverser of the globe. A woman undecided, she chucks a bejewelled chainmail vest over a chiffon gown in a bid to up the ante, on another day it’s a salmon pink tweed, fur and neoprene coat- the coat itself as ambivalent as her. As kooky as Giambattasta’s sunglasses lover, her one consistency was her coat, cut away from the body and as cosy as a blanket.

Lead photo: CR FashionBook