When my daughter Mia wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is put on her Elsa dress.
“Help me be Elsa, then you can go back to sleep!” She squeals gleefully, trotting into our room at the crack of dawn.

At three and a half she’s already an impressive negotiator.

“Don’t forget the gloves Mum Mum! And shiny necklace!… wait, can I have a marshmallow? Elsa loves marshmallows.”

Of course, once’s she’s Elsified, her little brother/ PA/ disciple must be roused immediately, removed from his crib and transformed into a slightly grumpy but unprotesting Olaf. He knows where his snowman headgear and bodysuit are kept, and reaches for them dutifully.

“Don’t worry I can take I from here!” says Elsa (we must address her as such). She adjusts the velcro under his chubby cheeks just so, making sure he can still just about breathe. When Arthur’s fully Olafied, he sets about waddling around the apartment behind his regal leader as fast as he can in his slightly cumbersome fluffy attire.

We slump back into bed for another twenty minutes until the fear of Mia’s maternelle teacher giving us the you’re a little late face propels us into action.

They break fast in character, before the inevitable moment comes to transform back into a little Parisian junior kindergartener and park warrior, respectively.

It should be said —caveat: I’m generalising as usual with the cultural observations here— that in Paris, people don’t typically allow their children to dress as they please, as is apparently the custom in other parts of the world (or at least, Canada and often, the UK.)

I was surprised on a recent trip back to Toronto, when, at a dinner with my high school girl gang, there was suddenly a silence around the table before the most outspoken of the bunch piped up. “Mon… does everybody in Paris dress their kids like tiny real people, or is it just you because of the… fashion stuff?” The rest of my friends stared silently —it seemed they’d all been wondering…

“Yes!” I answered honestly. They do.

“So nobody lets them wear orange leggings with a pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt some random well-meaning person with unfortunate taste gave them?”

“Well, uh… no. No really” (I wasn’t going to lie to my oldest friends!) There are eccentric exceptions in cool hipster neighbourhoods, but the taste standard for the under-five crowd at Mia’s public maternelle is, I must say, very high.

When I later recount the discussion to my sister, she confirms she has been fascinated by this on recent trips to visit us too, and presses me for solutions. How on earth do Parisian parents manage to talk their kids out of “random fugly stuff” in favour of little collared shirts, tiny well-cut jeans and elegant outerwear?? Also, is this representative of a larger cultural phenomenon at play?

I say yes. And the answer is twofold: