I had committed a serious dress sin. I had worn a track suit when popping out to buy my morning baguette in Paris. I hadn't known this was a no-no until an Australian friend told me that she had been rebuked by her French boyfriend for doing the same. "It's not nice for the baker," he had told her earnestly.
Appearance counts in Paris, which I have recently returned from after eight months. The local dress rules are strict. Even on the hottest of summer days in the city, it's a sure bet that the only people wearing something as casual as shorts and T-shirts are tourists.
Sometimes Parisians take their obsession with appearances too far. An English friend told me that when she was about six months pregnant her beautician advised her that she really ought to get a pedicure and a leg wax just before she was due to give birth. It wouldn't be nice for the doctors and nurses to be exposed to such untamed flesh.
This anecdote says a lot about the French attitude to how people look. Women dress to be noticed by the opposite sex, be it the baker or the doctor. La seduction is the golden rule. Yves Saint Laurent once gushed that seduction means: "[loving] oneself a little in order to please a great deal."
Not tarty
The prevalent look is sexy and alluring, but not tarty, says Alicia Drake, an English fashion writer and author of A Shopper's Guide to Paris Fashion. Skirts are short, tops are low-cut and jackets are tailored. It's a silhouette that stalks the entire city.
Drake, who herself looks every bit the well-groomed Parisian after four years living there, says the dress code in France is quite strict, with a certain look for the weekend, dinner or Sunday mass. "They are not radical dressers. They have impeccable taste, but they don't take risks," she said. "In Britain or Ireland there's a credibility to being eccentric, but here elegance and bon gout is the chic pinnacle. It's such a cliche, but it's so true."
From a French person, bon gout - said about your outfit, your apartment, your hairstyle - is the ultimate compliment. Even serious news magazines are arbiters of style. The weekly publication, Le Nouvel Observateur, once devoted an entire page to The Detail That Kills: white socks teamed with business shoes. "It's ugly," said the report. ". . . like a nose dropping which hangs, like an avalanche or dandruff. Horror. Shame."
Self-discipline
To maintain their sleek looks, Parisian women have a high level of self-discipline about their eating habits. They do not eat croissants for breakfast; they do not snack on chocolate or crisps between meals; they do not stuff their faces with bread before their dinner arrives; and they do not drink their male friends under the table. Instead, they smoke a lot, eat fruit and yoghurt and are obsessed with cellulite, even though most of them don't have any.
The results of this rigorous regime are most impressive when you look at older Parisians. Take Coco Chanel, who, right up to her death in 1988, slipped easily into her perfectly petite suits. With her painstakingly pencilled eyebrows and painted nails, the designer was always preened and polished.
Coco may be gone, but the city is still full of glamorous grannies. They glide into places like the gilded Paris tea-room, Laduree, teetering on spiky heels, with crimson lips and nails, dragging their obligatory tiny terrier behind them on a jewel-encrusted lead.
The French culture of beauty and elegance dominates almost every detail of life here, from the humble corner patisseries with neat rows of sumptuous cakes to the designer shops and boudoir boutiques of the Left Bank.
Scraps of lace
Take underwear. There were almost as many lingerie shops on my street as there were boulangeries. During the eight months I lived there, I never set foot in one. I was warned by a friend before I moved to Paris that I should stock up on undies as prices were outrageous there. But price was not the only thing that put me off. Much as I was intrigued by the coloured scraps of lace, silk and satin which adorned the shop windows, the prospect of subjecting myself to the close scrutiny of a Parisian shop assistant was too daunting.
When you enter a small boutique in Paris, nine times out of ten you will be confronted by a petite and immaculately-groomed woman who will rapidly give you the once-over and proceed to bully you into buying what she thinks suits you. If you dither at all, she will lose interest and pass you over for another customer who knows what s/he wants.
What Paris largely lacks, and cities like London have, is really alternative street fashion. Even super-trendy Parisians always manage to look groomed and elegant. So, how did living in Paris for eight months change my fashion sensibilities? Do I now exude bon gout? You'd need to ask my baker about that.
* An updated version of A Shopper's Guide to Paris Fashion, published by Metro Books, London, will be out next March.