Giambattista Valli's short story at the Paris couture shows

At Giambattista Valli: proof that couture no longer means tailoring or trailing skirts. There were those too, of course, but the salient point of this collection was its brevity - mini-skirts, shorts and above-the-knee flippys. 

Those step-hems we've see clustering on the red carpet of late were in this designer's hands made short and A-line, more like pronounced peplums. Then there were wrapped silk miniskirts, and jacquard shorts.

Valli played with proportion too, from long-line tunic tops to dropped waist skirts, belted at the back in homage to the original Balenciaga take in the 50s. Slim and strapless fish-tailed gowns recalled Dior's H-line, and were an interesting reminder of Valli's constant effort to create unexpected, even disarming, silhouettes in his work.

He achieved this in part through a certain sportiness. There were cropped shell tops worn with long and fluid parachute-silk skirts, each more encrusted with appliqué petals than the next. 

Prints were digitally and dimensionally rendered, refracting from painterly flowers into crystalline abstracts and heavily sequinned too. Although the overwhelming effect was one of feminine grace, there was nevertheless a streetwise modernity to this collection, in an anti-fit boxiness and a disregard for sleeves. 

And the pockets - cut into gowns and fashioned out of bows burgeoning at hip height. These were dresses for modern women, the type who are increasingly turning to couture as a means of expressing their individuality. And these dresses had that in spades.

Click the gallery to see every look from the Giambattista Valli spring 2014 couture show