Three wafer-thin young women walked down the middle of the road, one wearing a halo of feathers that quivered over her head.

As hats go it was the least practical you can imagine, but in terms of attracting attention it proved a winner. "The young are mad," laughed a builder in grubby overalls, but he followed every step of the model's progress down the cobbled street.

Without knowing it, we had landed in Paris in Fashion Week. The first clue was a party of cool dudes who padded through passport control like a pack of leopards, swathed in fur and leather. Later, in the Tuileries Garden, where picnickers were enjoying the first mild day of spring, a couple dressed in chartreuse fabrics and jewellery that would have turned Marie Antoinette the same shade of green forced joggers and cyclists to make a detour while photographers snapped them from every angle. For the rest of the week we could barely pass a tree without a freakishly tall girl emerging scantily clad from behind it, pouting to camera. In a city renowned for narcissists, preeners are ten a penny, but this week they were out in force. It was as cheering as if the daffodils had bloomed early.

Nowhere can make you feel as dowdy as Paris, or inspire you to give more thought to how to dress. When even a security guard wears a better-cut suit than most Glasgow businessmen it's clear there is a fundamental cultural gulf between the way we and the French think about clothes. Intellectuals in particular like to dismiss fashion as trivial, a sign of a shallow mind or immorally large bank balance, but they are wrong. As Paris makes abundantly plain, there is often a close relationship between style and substance. Being poorly turned out is as much a statement as looking good, and the message it sends is dispiriting, both to the grungily dressed and the onlooker. Nor is it a question of money. High fashion is obviously beyond the pockets of all but the rich, but within hours of new collections being unveiled, copy cats will be at work turning out facsimiles affordable by the masses. And anyway, the kind of fashion at which Paris truly excels is not that of the cutting edge or haute couture, but its simpler cousin, chic. The French have such an eye for colour and line it's as if they've been born with an extra sense.

Inspired by the elegance of middle-aged French women, I set off to find a hat shop where I had once bought a cloche that lasted several Scottish winters without losing its shape. En route, as they say in those parts, I window shopped, eyes smarting at shoes with platforms so high only an acrobat dare step into them, or hats so wide they could never be worn indoors. As with fashion house creations, these shops sold the ridiculous as well as the covetable, their wares better suited to a world of fantasy than to Sauchiehall Street on a wet Wednesday. Nor is there any surprise in that. For centuries Paris has been guilty of sartorial excess to an almost ludicrous degree, which is part of what makes it one of the rag trade's capitals. Where else would characters such as Balzac's vain young heroes run into terrible debt for the sake of a new pair of boots or a fashionably-cut coat? When, some years ago, an Alexander McQueen collection for Givenchy was about to be launched at an old meat market, rumour had it that the designer's music had driven sewer rats crazy. Staff were reported to have blocked the drains to prevent the creatures streaming out across the floor during the show. "Bullshit", said one American fashion writer, who - probably correctly - believed McQueen would have been delighted if rodents had accessorised the event.

The hunt for the hat shop did not end happily. Where the boutique had stood an empty window displayed a sign informing customers that the milliner's hats could now be bought in Le Bon Marche. This emporium, whose lights rival the Eiffel Tower's, is the Ritz of French department stores. Eventually I found the hats, and their inflated price tags, and my thoughts turned to a humble beret instead. Meanwhile, a week spent tramping the Paris streets explained why so few Parisians - in the city centre at least - are overweight. The artistic, self-conscious mood of the city is infectious, showing the inarguable link between looking good and being healthy. Food may be almost as important here as fashion, but the two go hand in hand. Part of traditional French life, it seems, is the inborn knowledge of how to take care of oneself, inside and out.