When I was a wide- eyed young ingenue, I spent a formative year in Paris. My love of fashion had cemented itself early with a childhood obsession with Jeanne Beker, host of Fashion Television and an enthusiastic stint as a shop girl in Dublin’s most sophisticated boutiques.?Transported from 1980s Dublin to Paris at the height of the supermodel era, I marvelled at Parisian womankind and the whirl of international luxury. I was fascinated by the formula of French chic, fine- tuned over decades, moving slowly like a polar cap through the generations. Grandmother, mother and daughter could gaily walk together arm in arm, all cheekbones, good knees and cashmere, each bringing their own take on, effectively, the same outfit. Classicism and correctness were the order of the day. And there was a comfort in that for Parisian society. It placed you. It marked your social status. The code was BCBG, or bon-chic, bon-genre. The literal translation is good style, good attitude. I became acutely aware that in my homeland, our attitude to style was a bit like throwing mud at the wall to see what stuck. There were no rules, no stylistic mores on which to build a formula for success. The analytical me loved the Parisian idea that if you stuck to the plan, it would be right. But the wild child in me had questions. But not for long. French style may be a polar cap, but the ice cap, since those early days, has got progressively cooler. As traditional values and women’s roles changed, Parisian women grew in stature and embraced an attitude of sexuality, charged by an inherent knowledge of the foundations of looking good.