Why it's so hard to get dressed these days

No you're not alone. What I learned as a non-fashion person in a fashion world (including that time I got asked in a job interview if my handbag was "real")

As I mentioned (sorry), I was recently in Paris for work, where I was transfixed by the general air of chic as everyone sashayed about the place. It was Fashion Week, but never mind the catwalks - it’s much more interesting to know what everyone is wearing in the streets or bars, I think, which I clocked as:

• Light blue straight long and slightly loose jeans.

• Severe black tops or structured fitted jackets

• A small dog (or, at a push, small furry dog-shaped handbag)

And yet, of course, if you follow that formula you could just as easily look as if you’re heading to the corner shop than out to a party. Which rather sums up how tricky it can be to translate, if you’re interested, Fashion into Outfits. Or, to face the special fraught hell that is Shopping, where dreams meet reality and budgets.

That’s an area in which I have expertise (defined by a lack of it elsewhere), as a non-fashion person who passed through the fashion world. As deputy editor of a fashion-focused magazine, I arrived from…