A weekend in Paris asks for four days of clothes packed into two, which is why the answer is a small set of very good pieces that rotate from morning coffee to a late table. Build it around three things: trousers that hold a crease, one dress that photographs well in flat grey light, and shoes you can genuinely walk on cobbles in. Everything else is scarf, sunglasses and a bag that fits a phone, a paperback and a pastry.

Friday, Left Bank, is the arrival uniform, and it sets the tone for the rest of it. You will have come off a plane or a train, and you want to look like you live here, not like you have just checked into somewhere with a lobby. That means a striped poplin blouse, high-waisted trousers, a belted trench in case the sky changes its mind, and a slingback flat that does not announce itself. Add a silk scarf. Paris rewards a scarf. One good scarf can restyle the same coat three days running, which is the whole economy of this trip.

Dinner at eight in the sixth is the hinge of the whole trip, and it is where heels earn their place in the suitcase. Restaurants here are small, the tables are close, and you will be looked at from about four feet away, so texture matters more than volume. A crepe-satin gown reads beautifully in candlelight. A satin midi from the high street reads almost as well, which is the quiet joke of Parisian dressing.

The rule at night is one strong thing and nothing else competing. If the dress is doing the work, keep the bag flat and the jewellery small. If you are wearing trousers, let them be silk and let the top drape. Patent pumps are the safe brilliant choice because they survive rain and still look like an evening decision. A lace bomber over the top of it all, thrown on for the walk home, is the move that makes the outfit look lived in rather than assembled. Book the table for eight thirty if you can. Paris does not really start until then, and neither should you.

Saturday is the marche, the musee and roughly four cafes, which means you are on your feet from ten until seven and changing nothing in between. This is the day flats win. Mesh ballet flats, a lace-up ballerina, anything with a soft sole and a shape that still looks considered under a wide-leg trouser. Save the heels for the evening and thank yourself around three.

Daylight is where prints belong. A zigzag tote, a paisley silk top, a floral silk mini worn with bare legs and a trench thrown over the arm. The trick is to keep the palette tight even when the pattern is busy, so pull two colours out of the print and repeat them in the belt and the bag. Sunglasses do a lot of work here, mostly because half of Saturday happens outdoors at a small round table. Choose a frame with some presence and wear it from breakfast onward. One last thing: put the museum ticket in the bag with the pastry, not the phone pocket. It will survive better.

The late table and a walk along the Seine is the most Parisian sequence available, and it wants a dress you can sit in for three hours and still walk a mile in. This is where the lace-trimmed minidress and the ombre knit maxi both work, for different reasons. One is soft and slightly undone. The other has movement, which matters when you are walking past the water at midnight and the light is doing something dramatic to the buildings.

Bring a jacket. Even in warm months the river turns cold after eleven, and a cropped shearling-trimmed leather jacket over a slip is the single best thing you can do for both warmth and photographs. Keep the bag tiny, keep the heel sensible, and accept that a strappy sandal at eighty dollars will get you through a walk more happily than something four figures. A sequined top under a printed satin trouser is also permitted, provided you commit. And wear the earrings you can lose. Something always ends up on a banquette at one in the morning.

Sunday in the Tuileries and then a two-hour lunch is the softest day, so dress like someone with nowhere urgent to be. A lace-trimmed silk blouse with barrel-leg wool trousers, a brown leather top-handle bag, and a flat you have already broken in. This is the outfit that photographs well on a green metal chair and still works when lunch runs until four and turns into a glass of something.

A wide-brimmed straw hat is either wonderful or too much depending entirely on your conviction, and Paris in high summer forgives it. If that is not your register, a strong pilot sunglass does the same job with less commitment. The ruched maxi in a zebra print is the one-piece answer for anyone who does not want to think: add flat sandals, a belt, and stop. Layer a lightweight trench over everything on the walk home. Sunday weather here changes about as often as the menu does. If it rains, and it will, the hat becomes the umbrella and the whole day looks better for it.

One last night and then the morning flight calls for the piece you have been saving, plus something you can genuinely sleep in on the plane. A silk-blend satin midi covers the first half. Wide silk drawstring trousers with a ruffled satin top cover both, which is why this pairing has quietly become the smartest thing in the bag.

Embellished suede pumps are worth the space. They sharpen a simple dress instantly and they are the difference between dinner and an event. A structured leather clutch in olive or khaki reads richer than black at this point in the trip, and a satin shoulder-pad coat from the high street does the drama of a couture coat for the price of the taxi. For the flight itself: the maxi dress with bows, flat shoes, the scarf as a blanket. Then go home and quietly restructure your entire wardrobe around three colours and one very good pair of trousers. Pack the clutch inside the tote on the way out. It comes home holding a boarding pass and a receipt from somewhere good.

We would spend the money on two things and be ruthless about everything else. Buy the trousers and buy the bag. Those are the pieces you will wear on the next four trips, in three cities, with clothes you already own. The gowns in this edit are gorgeous and most of them are wrong for a weekend, because a weekend has one dinner in it, not four galas. Skip the ball gown unless you have somewhere real to wear it.

We are also not going to pretend the high street pieces here are the same as the designer ones. The Zara satin and the Mango trench will not last five years. They will absolutely last this weekend, and photographed at a small table in low light nobody can tell, including you.

If you take one thing away, it is this. Pack one pair of flats you have already worn in and one heel you can stand in for three hours, and leave the third pair of shoes at home.