About three years ago, a mysterious-looking clothing store with all-black interiors called Wochdom opened on rue Condorcet, an otherwise unassuming street in the Ninth arrondissement where we have lived for the last seven years. Sandwiched between Montmartre, seedy Pigalle, and the Japanese restaurants-saturated Opéra district, the Ninth is one of the rare quartiers in central Paris that is utterly devoid of historical monuments. Luminaries like George Sand and Frederic Chopin once lived here, and so did leading Surrealist André Breton, but it is not a neighbourhood that attracts camera-laden tourists like other Parisian arrondissements. When Wochdom arrived, however, long floppy haired girls in acid-washed jean jackets and legwarmers over high-heels began convening at our local cafes, hauling out their latest buys for mutual inspection. At Wochdom, there is always a single black velvet mannequin in the window, chicly clothed in something vintage you would never think of putting on, like a frothy cream lace prairie dress or a Minnie Mouse fake fur coat. Because of it, our street has become a thoroughfare for fashion freaks. What did the name mean? No one knew, but the prices were substantial enough to command our respect.

Wochdom soon expanded into accessories, opening up a second boutique across the street. Shoes and purses sparely line the black shelves. The shopgirl sits in a booth in the back of the store, as if waiting for tickets, or lounging outside the door, smoking. At night, the store's parma pink awning glows, while a pair of display shoes—one week, Eskimo mukluks; next week a pair of chlorophyll-coloured pumps—sits in dramatic spotlight. A black mini-van lettered with the store's name in signature pink, clearly modelled on the Yves Saint Laurent delivery trucks, can be seen at all hours driving through the neighbourhood. A few months ago the Paris newspaper

It is Rudy's prescience about things like a skinny pair of pale pink polyester stovepipe overalls that makes him Paris's newest tastemaker.

Libération, which daily deploys portraits of consequential people on its back page, told us that Wochdom meant Show Mode in verlan, the French inside-out slang, and that the king of Wochdom was a 22-year-old named Rudy Cohen. Rudy, who grew up in the Ninth, is passionate about vintage and buys with no regard to what is going on on the runways. ("I don't have to see the shows," he says, shyly arrogant. "They copy me.") It is Rudy's prescience about things like a skinny pair of pale pink polyester stovepipe overalls that makes him Paris's newest tastemaker. French Vogue chief Carine Roitfeld drops into Wochdom. John Galliano nipped in a couple of weeks back and snapped up a fur jacket. The boys from French electronic bands Air and Phoenix were outfitted there for their latest video clips. Rudy now consults for houses like Givenchy and Ralph Lauren.

Wochdom, rue Condorcet © J. Pecheur

My upstairs neighbour Eve goes to Wochdom quite frequently, where she bought a pair of jodhpurs that she "wears to death." A textiles and knitwear designer who once designed a beaded shetland sweater mermaid dress for Jean Paul Gaultier Couture, Eve is a Transylvanian-tinged genius of fashion and decor. Her apartment/atelier, a glittery gothic shrine of shimmering beaded curtains, old Venetian mirrors, and sequined lamps, was featured in World of Interiors and last February's Elle Decor UK. Here, among the flickering bulbs, Eve keeps witch's hours, creating dense and intricate knitwear prototypes, decadent jewellery pieces set with black hearts, pieces of kinked coral, and lion's heads, and vintage purses hand painted by her brother, a medical illustrator.

In fashion terms, Eve is an early adopter—an innovator—so when she started patronizing Wochdom, it was only a matter of time before the rest of us would begin surreptitiously shopping there. I say surreptitiously because, though we are susceptible to Wochdom's pull, we feel that only chumps would pay 80€ for a second-hand dress. After all, we are not fashion victims in the Ninth arrondissement. My friend Simone has admitted to buying a crocheted dress there, though she always reminds us that she got it on sale ("Only 20€ and I couldn't have knitted it myself. ") Just about everything Simone wears is something that came out of her sewing machine or off a pair of her perpetually clicking knitting needles. She does a Marni-esque accessory line of bags and scarves called Chambre 10, winsome patchworks of old and new fabrics that she confects in her tiny studio above her apartment on rue des Martyrs. (I wore one of Simone's scarves to a fashion show, where its was fingered covetously by British Vogue's Lucinda Chambers.) Simone is the kind of woman who will run up drapes for you at a day's notice. Or a tablecloth, which is what she happens to be sewing up right now for The Supper Club, an ephemeral restaurant that is open once a month at our local cafe.

Because of it, our street has become a thoroughfare for fashion freaks.

Like most Parisians, we are fiercely loyal to our neighbourhood, but we feel both a little nonplussed and a little vindicated by its burgeoning hipness. Wochdom's opening was a sign. The sight of Jarvis Cocker throwing his baby up and down in the air in our pathetic neighbourhood park was another. Then Rose Bakery appeared. Rose is a London export that serves organic food and is run by Rose Joffe, Rei Kawakubo's sister-in-law, and her husband Jean-Charles. Rose Bakery is also in Dover Street Market in London, just upstairs from Comme des Garcons. Rose is the hangout headquarters for Gonzales, the Montreal hip-hopper turned producer and piano soloist who rents Sabine's studio on Rue Turgot. Gonzales produces Feist and Peaches, and when his album came out last year, he gave a piano concert in the window at Colette.

A few months ago I finally broke down and made my first Wochdom purchase—or rather, purchases. A pair of houndstooth bell-bottoms and a blue velvet skirt. The next day, I went in again, re-emerging with a red cotton twill coat and a purple velvet blazer with contrast seaming.
It was on sale, so technically I wasn't a chump. But my street may never be safe again.

Wochdom, 72, rue Condorcet, Paris 9. 01 53 21 09 72.
Rose Bakery, 46, rue des Martyrs, Paris 9. 01 42 82 12 80.