Couture Fashion Week is in full swing, when the industry's heavyweights - Chanel and Dior among them - are given the chance to throw commercialism to the wind and forget about wearability.

This is fashion at its most exquisite, theatrical and, lest we forget, its most expensive. Most of us won't have couture budgets, but we can dream, so we've found the most dramatic, desirable dresses to gaze over.

From beaded flapper dresses to shimmering pink gowns, see fashion's most ostentatious, show-stopping looks: