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On the Saturday of Paris Men’s Fashion Week last month, all 42 seats in a tiny restaurant just north of the Marais district were full, even those in the annex bar, where a couple in black Adidases and silver Louboutins were sharing guacamole with Kobe beef bacon.

In the main dining room, lit by votive candles, a group of 15 were celebrating the birthday of YSL’s studio director, while waiters in tan hide aprons circulated with wine bottles and glasses. Every few minutes, someone got up for a cigarette, but not before a petite Spanish woman wearing a leopard-print blouse and chunky earrings and drinking white wine with ice stopped them for a double kiss and a “bonsoir, ça va?”