OH, THE GLAMOUR. Front-row intrigue, outrageous clothes, celebrity fun-fests and paparazzi-filled parties. Covering Paris Fashion Week sounds like a good gig, n'est ce pas? Well, yes and no. Fashion magazines may put a glossy spin on the shows but the reality is a lot more gritty. Really. Editors and buyers, the front-line fashionistas who travel from New York to London, Milan and Paris twice a year, can see up to 100 shows a week - and for every great designer there are at least a dozen duds with nothing to say. Then there's the waiting (an average of 45 minutes for each show), cramped conditions, pushing and shoving, hostile security guards and, of course, uncomfortable shoes and an annoying lack of taxis in Paris. The autumn/winter womens-wear collections, which wrapped up in the French capital last week, are especially arduous. A group of American editors, led by Vogue empress Anna Wintour, convinced the Chambre Syndicale, which organises fashion week, to condense all of the big shows into the first six days so they wouldn't have to be away from home for too long. Not only did this result in 14-hour working days (in a country where 38-hour weeks are enshrined in law), it made it impossible to see all the shows. Consequently, a lot of the little guys - young, independent designers without enormous advertising budgets - were pushed to the end of the schedule, after everyone had left, or ended up slipping through the cracks. This is a shame, because these are the people who could show something unexpected, some-thing lovingly constructed, something that reminds us of what fashion is at its best: an accurate - if not always pretty - picture of where we are as a culture. Day One (Thursday March 7): Touch down from Milan, check in, shower . . . and almost miss the first big show, Christian Dior. It looks great for the first time in seasons. John Galliano has finally stopped trying to dress grown women as ravers and refined the multicultural references he injected into his last couture collection. Next season, everyone is going to want to look like a Mongolian nomad with an around-the-world ticket. The show bristles with striped South American knits, Roman centurions' helmets, pagoda-sleeved jackets and fringed moccasins. The fur's flying, too: one over-excited model, working an oversized parka, moults all over the front row, practically inducing an allergic reaction. Who reckons fashion is without its occupational hazards? Not Belgian design duo AF Vandevorst, anyway. They've posted a sign outside their show (in the Petit Palais, under renovation and looking fabulously worn down) warning: 'Caution epileptics, strobe lights used.' It's no joke. It takes what seems like half an hour and a torrent of screams from audience and photographers for the strobes to fade and reveal a rather banal collection of black and yellow bumble-bee sweaters, back-to-front tuxedos and bomber jackets - a big trend next season. There are swarms of them at Yohji Yamamoto's show, closing the first day at 9pm and pointing out the difference between real designers and mere stylists. It really is a question of cut and silhouette. Yamamoto plays with both in some amazing lantern-sleeved coats, deconstructed denim and sport-inspired varsity jackets with a YY patch. Afterwards, it's a dash next door to the Pavillon Ledoyen, where Longines is celebrating 170 years of telling the time. I attack the canapes and meet Hong Kong actress Carina Lau, recently appointed a Longines ambassador along with actor Billy Zane, an Italian musician, a Russian actor and a former Miss India. Lau says she will be travelling in Europe for two weeks but when I ask where, she clams up. Carina, sweetie, a word of advice: better to say something, or everyone will assume you're off to Switzerland and the surgeon's knife. Day Two (Friday): First show of the day is Lagerfeld Gallery, in the Carousel du Louvre, the epicentre of Paris fashion shows. Get a front-row seat next to Hong Kong supermodel Qi Qi, in town for a photo shoot for Karl Lagerfeld's latest line. The show has all the Lagerfeld signatures: portrait collars, peaked shoulders, sequinned tops and fur boleros - all worn with jeans the Kaiser created in collaboration with Diesel. As in Milan, models can't seem to stay on their feet. Jacquetta Wheeler tumbles off her vertiginous boots before bouncing back to big applause. Even Carmen Kass - who looks like she was born in stilettos - almost hits an imaginary banana skin. Next up, Emanuel Ungaro, where Giambattista Valli is showing his second collection for the house. Lots of bohemian blouses, printed silk dresses and fur vests. Trousers worn inside the boots and with a big rope belt - something fashion victims had better start getting used to. At Celine, Michael Kors sends out a fine collection for women with more money than moxie. All of the basics were there - straight skirts, bomber jackets, flight pants, fox-fur chubbies and a lot of greige - but no flair, no daring. Where were the pieces that, with the economy in a spin, made you want to run out and shop? It's 4pm and time for the Loewe show, where Jose Enrique Ona Selfa, the 26-year-old Belgian who used to work with Olivier Theyskens, is off to a good start: his leather pieces are cut laser-sharp and there are some nice, satin evening looks. Not sure about the powder-pink, leather bloomers, though. A quiet dinner with my friend Miles, a fashion editor on a new, Asia-focused magazine with cele-brity photographer Michel Comte. Everyone seems so interested in Asia - and the money it can make them - but you don't really see it at the shows. The Asian contingent has to fight for the worst seats and even if we make it to the front row, the US and European press get the views. It's like school - you can get on the bus but that doesn't mean you can sit with the cool kids. Day Three (Saturday): The day kicks off with antics from one of fashion's enfants terribles, Jean Paul Gaultier. This season's gimmick is convertible clothing that - with a wrap, twist and tie - transform from trenchcoats into trains, jackets into gowns. They came rolling out on a dry-cleaning rack on the runway, from which models would take pieces and put them on. Ingenious, just one catch: it's quickly apparent models can't begin to dress - or undress - themselves. Also like Ann Demeulemeester, which explores familiar territory. Lots of black, draping, cracked leather, shawl coats and horsehair. Very Goth, in the original sense. By 11pm, I'm in a bar opposite the Conciergerie, where bad boy No 2 Alexander McQueen has just shown his second, signature collection under the Gucci umbrella. Brilliant. Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big, Bad Wolf meets saucy schoolgirl meets Victorian dominatrix meets Tim Burton - who, incidently, did the illustrations for McQueen's invitation (a primary school notebook). In typical McQueen fashion, it's all an hour late - but worth the wait. It opens with one poor model walking two wolves around the venue's vaulted arches (apparently, she has had to hang around with them for a week for them to get used to her scent). Run into Joyce Ma outside the show. She is in an amazing, antique coat that must have taken 200 hours - and lots of little hands - to complete. She's been paparazzi-fodder all day, she complains. Day 4 (Sunday): What's up with Christian Lacroix? Where is the exuberance, where are the patterns and the prints? Just an uneventful assemblage of earthy tweed jackets and matronly skirts. I should have slept in. Hermes' show is beautiful. Nothing tricky, just a continuation of the quiet, confident elegance that Martin Margiela does so well. Trousers are more fitted this season - good news for Asian women, who often swim in his cuts - and I love the luxurious satin blouses, lantern-sleeved coats and clever, cashmere skirts worn over trousers. Over to Alber Elbaz's debut at Lanvin, the French house bought by Taiwanese media mogul Shaw-Lan Wang last year. Elbaz, formerly a hired hand at Guy Laroche, Yves Saint Laurent and Krizia Top, shows some beautiful pieces (flapper dresses, tulle ballet looks, over-sized power suits) but the collection is confusing. He should fire his stylist, who sent spats and ballet slippers out with the oddest ensembles. It's all about the shoes, at the end of the day. I'm seated in Siberia at John Galliano's packed show, which looks like a repeat of his Dior collection. This time, however, Galliano's fashion nomads travel light, wearing pillows and blankets as hats. Women's Wear Daily has started calling him Genghis John. German-born, Belgium-based designer Bernhard Willhelm is an original, fusing naive, childish designs with sinister undertones. Unfortunately, when I arrive there is an angry mass outside the gate, pushing and shoving like a picket line. Same old story: too many tickets, not enough seats. Day 5 (Monday): Two big shows today: Louis Vuitton and YSL Rive Gauche. Both are quite commercial but not as exciting as last season's stand-outs. Vuitton is particularly restrained: think sorbet colours, secretarial attire, slip dresses and a mingling of fabrics with different weights. In short, Prada circa 1997. Lenny Kravitz and Kate Hudson turn up at Tom Ford's first YSL show since Yves retired in January. His presence, however, is still felt, this time in Ford's interpretation of Catherine Deneuve's costumes in Belle De Jour. There are shirred skirts, high necks, bourgeois bows and some of the sexy, laced blouses Ford has been working on since last autumn's Spanish collection. Everything is predictably black, with one crystal dress standing out from the rest. Skip the Marjan 'Bjork's Oscars swan dress' Pejoski show to meet Louis Vuitton's Asia-Pacific team for a press dinner. I am among just a smattering of Hong Kong faces there. Everyone else is from the mainland. Could this mean a shift for Vuitton? Day Six (Monday): After five glorious days, the miserable Paris drizzle is back for the last stretch and an early Chloe show offers little relief. After an impressive spring/summer debut, Pheobe Philo (Stella McCartney's old assistant) shows a ho-hum collection of rock chic basics, her signature tight trousers, girlish lace and, er, quilted satin jackets. Maybe I'm just sick, tired and ready for home, but I hum along to the show's soundtrack, Another One Bites The Dust . . . Music is the main attraction at Chanel, where neo-New Wave Belgian band Vive la Fete provide accompaniment to Karl Lagerfeld's leaner, meaner Chanel silhouette (think leather miniskirts, bombers, jumpsuits and thick, quilted belts). Chanel's cosmeticians must have a surplus of black eye-liner, because everyone - from models to the band to embarrassed-looking ushers - looks like Nick Rhodes in his Duran Duran heyday. Head back to the hotel with a headache, take a nap, and wake up for Martin Margiela at 6pm. Margiela's show is always my favourite, not so much for the clothes (which are amazing, if not always wearable) but for the ritualistic way in which they are presented. No supermodels or celebrities here - the enigmatic Belgian prefers 'real' women. Pretentious? Perhaps, but it lets in a humanity rarely found in high fashion's often cold, corporate and class-ridden world. My ticket doesn't arrive so I am forced to wait with legions of Margiela fans - mostly design students and Japanese teenagers - until a friend shows up with a spare. Guess what? Margiela's staff, wearing white lab coats and big smiles, hold the show, let everyone in and give them a glass of wine. Such moments remind me why I love fashion so much. Had he asked, I would have run away from the circus and joined the Belgian's band. Next season, maybe . . . A lot of the little guys - young, independent designers - were pushed to the end of the schedule, after everyone had left