Ah the couture shows, the one point in the fashion calendar when you don’t have to worry about how to reinterpret the trends by cobbling together bits from your wardrobe with high street ‘interpretations’. With couture you can simply gawp in awe at the designers’ flights of fancy. This is fashion fantasy in its purest form and the clothes are accompanied by equally outlandish make-up – looks which are so extreme that you couldn’t possibly imitate them even if you wanted to.

Make-up artist Emma Day reminisces: 'The first couture show I ever assisted on was Alexander McQueen's second show with Givenchy in the 90s and I was working on a team under make-up impresario Val Garland, one of my first big assisting jobs. It was the most intense show I ever worked on as each model had an individual look as they were all very extravagant characters from a French village - it was a real visual feast and demanding on the hair and make-up team - very exciting and inspiring to work on.'

Well, that’s how it used to be anyway. Last season things were different – especially at Dior where John Galliano’s unashamedly over-the-top aesthetic was replaced by Raf Simons’ coolly minimalist vision. Instead of candyfloss beehives, sequin-encrusted lips and butterfly eyes, we had beauty that was a little more, dare I say it, normal. Ok, not ‘normal’ as we might see it but at least accessible. And accessible is not a word that’s often associated with couture.  

It was the same at today’s Dior couture show for Spring/Summer 2014, which again offered us hair and make-up that wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. Simons’ models looked like teenage Teddy Girls slouching along in stiff, structured ballgowns. The awkward gawkiness of their stances, plus the understated hair and make-up juxtaposed with the opulence of the clothes created a compelling effect.

"It's an ‘undone’ look - young and cool" - Emma Day, Make-up artist

Hair was tousled with a deep side parting and a ‘post-shower’ damp texture reminiscent of the drenched ‘downpour hair’ at Prada AW13. Some models had matte, berry lips, while others appeared to be wearing nothing but a slick of balm. Skin had a soft, powdery quality to it, almost as if it was being viewed through translucent paper. Cheeks were the palest rose – nothing heavy-handed, just soft prettiness and of course absolute perfection.  

Emma Day commented on the look, 'today’s Dior show reflects the designer’s modern sensibility and another kind of 90s reference - pure minimalism. Clean, mattified skin, a classic red lip, taupe eye-shadow with a small amount of mascara. The no-makeup look is almost the models as they turned up to the show, it's an ‘undone’ look - young and cool and but also easy to re-create for women in their 20s, 30s and 40s. This is about perfect skin and ‘under’ doing it.'

Simons’ couture is totally modern – the luxury and craftsmanship are there in every stitch, but the overall look is more relaxed and the perfectly undone beauty matches that. It’s as if he’s saying that just because you’re wearing a dress that cost thousands of pounds, you don’t have to blow-dry your hair or wear a mask of make-up. Just be cool, relax – don’t try too hard, or at  the very least don’t make it obvious that you’ve made an effort.

This quest for seemingly effortless perfection isn’t just a catwalk phenomenon. Every day I scroll through scores of images in my Instagram feed of carefully choreographed, heavily edited ‘reality’. Selfies never seem to reveal a bad hair day or skin eruption, it’s as if everyone is constantly photo-ready. Skin is under more pressure than ever to look good and this reality is being reflected on the catwalk. The purpose of couture beauty used to be to push the artist’s skills to their absolute limits, acting like a laboratory for ideas, but today it’s more about achieving absolute perfection while making it seem effortless and hyper-natural.

So while part of me mourns the passing of the outlandish couture beauty of days gone by, it’s intriguing to see a new, more relaxed look that makes the remote world of haute couture feel that little bit easier to relate to. And of course customers will think 'I can do that', before buying the eyeshadow palette or lipstick to recreate the look for themselves, sharing the results on social media, bringing couture well and truly into the age of the selfie.

Click the gallery to see the hair and make-up from the Dior Spring 2014 couture show...