During the month of fashion shows, which finish today in Paris, there has been a lot of style news – but not much of it has been about where designers stand on hemlines or the catwalk’s prevailing wind towards knee-high boots. Instead, we have talked about pink pussy hats and slogan T-shirts, Ralph Lauren and Melania Trump, retail’s tussles with Ivanka, sexist dress codes, headscarves and the drive toward diverse model casting.

Well, of course we have. But it would be stupid not to look at the fashion content of the catwalk collections as well. Stupid is a strong word; I use it deliberately. Yes, this feels like a moment for direct action, and therefore slogan T-shirts resonate. But the fashion that happens on the catwalk – shifts in silhouette and mood and tone; opaque references and obtuse proposals about what to wear – is how fashion engages with the world around it in a more subtle sense. And fashion has more to say about the female experience than you can fit on a T-shirt.

Fashion’s attempts to intellectualise getting dressed fail at least as often as they succeed. I have sat front row and read enough pretentious show notes that make me want to stab myself in the eye with my Smythson pencil to know that better than most. But in our new dumbed-down world, where public debate is debased by “locker-room talk” and constitutional government overruled by ungrammatical tweets, the argument for at least trying to keep intelligent and nuanced conversation going seems pretty strong.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Valentino in Paris. Photograph: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

What happened on the catwalk in Paris this week was that designers reclaimed fashion for grown-up women, and therefore put grown-up women, rather than girls, back in the driving seat. It happened in the model casting – Dries Van Noten’s show starred Cecilia Chancellor, 50, and Amber Valletta, 42, while Vivienne Westwood took to the catwalk aged 75. And the Hadids were notably absent for a large stretch of the week, Snapchatting from Disneyland Paris instead. But, most importantly, it happened in the clothes on the catwalk. The look of the season is a longish skirt or dress worn with the hem swirling around high-heeled boots, with a tailored jacket. Or wide trousers, with a slash-necked top. Lots of trenchcoats and coat dresses. These are not clothes for teenage kicks. You can’t see your abs, for a start.

Balenciaga is the buzzy, cool brand and designer Demna Gvasalia is only 35, which would logically skew the collection young, but no. Think long, pleated skirts to below the knee worn with cosy jumpers, boots, large handbags and proper earrings. Even the coats that looked like they had been buttoned up wrong were there to make the point that putting effort into styling clothes is as important as buying them, which, when you think about it, is quite a grown-up point of view. Céline was, as ever, cool and cerebral: I love how the clothes and the mood make the models look as if they are on their way to somewhere interesting rather than stalking a catwalk. Dries made the case for the trouser suit, and the blazer worn over a dress, and the grown-up quilted coat. Valentino’s swan-necked dresses with their long, slim sleeves are dreamy and poetic on the twentysomething socialites who flock to the front row, but the look is one that translates well into actual grown-up life. At McQueen, corset laces were left unlaced and evening wear had softly drawn Barbara Hepworth curves, which gave a sense of maturity, while at Stella McCartney, tailoring had a female swagger, the jackets high-waisted and the trousers louche. Dior’s new New Look, with its ballerina-hem skirts and simple sweaters, had a crisp urgency that is every bit as inspiring as ballgowns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Comme des Garçons in Paris. Photograph: Zacharie Scheurer/AP

And then there was the fact that the most frenzied phones-in-the-air social-media moment was when Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons stood for a photocall after Met curator Andrew Bolton had announced to a packed press conference the upcoming Costume Institute show in her honour. Although her clothes look extreme, Kawakubo is about nuance. Her clothes are about fashion and art, self and other, high and low culture, body and dress, but she rejects these as binaries in favour of embracing the spaces in between. (And no. No one dared to ask for a selfie.)

Whatever happened to athleisure? Apart from the running leggings under dresses at Giambattista Valli, it was mostly notable for its absence. Not completely – Rihanna’s Fenty show for Puma, staged in the National Library was a sort of High School Musical for the athleisure-and-Instagram generation – but definitely on the wane. This is surprising because last year it felt relevant as a way of expressing a sense of agency. Of women being active rather than passive in the style syntax. Perhaps it has now come to stand with youth culture rather than high fashion. Who knows? That’s the thing about catwalk fashion. It’s actually quite complicated. And that’s how I like it.