Giambattista Valli has spent two decades making the kind of dress a woman remembers putting on. The Paris house, founded in 2005 by the Roman couturier of the same name, built its reputation on romance with real structure behind it: sculptural volume, flowers rendered in thread, and a sense of occasion that never tips into fancy dress. Its founder shows couture on the official Paris calendar, a rare honour for a designer who is not French, and that discipline carries straight through to the ready-to-wear. These are dresses for the biggest entries in the diary, the black-tie dinner, the summer wedding, the evening that asks for a little more. The range runs from floor-sweeping gowns to a cropped tweed mini, so there is a Valli for the wedding you are attending and the party you are throwing. What follows is our edit of the Giambattista Valli dresses worth knowing now, grouped by the three things the house does better than almost anyone.

Draped columns and asymmetric lines

The clearest way into the house is through its long, draped gowns, where a single colour is given life by the way the fabric is gathered and then let go. These are the pieces that move with you across a room, and they photograph beautifully from every angle.

The Asymmetrical Draped Brick Long Dress is the house in shorthand, a full-length column in warm brick with its drapery pulled to one side so the surface reads as motion even while you stand still. The asymmetry stops a solid colour from ever looking flat, and brick is an unusually flattering shade, warmer than red and quieter than rust. The Long Asymmetrical Red Jersey Dress works the same idea in jersey, a fabric that gives and drapes rather than holds a rigid shape, so the asymmetric line falls soft and close to the body. In a clear, confident red, it is the rare floor-length gown you can actually sit down and eat dinner in. The Maxi Red Silk Dress with Draped Shoulders takes that red into silk and moves the drama upward, with draped shoulders framing the neckline and lending the maxi length its architecture from the top down. Keep the jewellery quiet and let the shoulders speak.

Floral embroidery, the house signature

If one thing has come to define Giambattista Valli, it is flowers, scattered and embroidered and appliquéd across fabric until a dress becomes a garden. The house treats a single bloom as seriously as a seam, and the results are romantic without ever turning saccharine.

Pink blossoms drift across the Asymmetrical Long Pink Blossoms Silk Dress, a full-length piece that softens the house’s favourite asymmetric cut with a bloom-strewn surface and the fluid fall of silk. The Ruby Pansies Embroidered Tulle Dress is the most decorative of the whole edit, pansies embroidered in deep ruby across fine tulle that gives the flowers something weightless to sit on, so they seem to float rather than lie flat against the body. Save it for the occasions that deserve the most, and let the dress be the only statement you make. For daylight, the Midi Pale Pink Dress with Embroidered Daisies brings the embroidery down to a midi length and a gentler palette, daisies worked over pale pink. It is the easiest of the florals to wear before dark, at a spring wedding, a garden lunch, a christening, and it will do just as well with flats as with a heel.

Sculpture and the shorter cut

Not every Giambattista Valli dress reaches the floor, and two pieces here show how much the house can say with shape alone. Both make their case through line rather than embellishment, proof that the label is as much about cut as it is about flowers.

The Long Green Trumpet Dress trades soft drapery for a defined silhouette, the trumpet cut holding close through the body before it flares below the knee, a shape that flatters as it walks. In green, it is a quieter kind of statement, all in the line and the colour, and a welcome change from the usual eveningwear palette. At the other end of the length scale, the Mini Pink Iridescent Tweed Dress is short and structured, cut from iridescent pink tweed that shifts in the light as you move. Tweed lends the mini its body and its backbone, and this is the dress to reach for when the evening wants a little wit, worn with bare legs and a high heel.

Still weighing up where the house sits? Our guide to Giambattista Valli as a luxury brand sets out the couture context, and once the dress is chosen, how to style Giambattista Valli covers the shoes, jewellery and finishing touches that complete each look. To compare houses working in the same romantic register, see brands like Giambattista Valli, and to shop the wider selection, browse our designer dresses.