Paris is about to host what might be the chicest pet event of the year — and it has nothing to do with a fashion show. Maurice Auction, the city's auction house, is staging 'I Love My Pet,' a sale devoted entirely to designer dog and cat accessories, many of them from Hermès and Goyard. Bidding runs from October 4 to October 15.

Everything in the sale comes from a single collector, which the auction house's founders, Salomé Pirson and Marie-Laurence Tixier, say gives the collection an unusual coherence and real collectible value. And scarcity is part of the pitch: while Hermès handbags were produced in their thousands, pet collars, leashes and travel gear from the same houses were made in far smaller numbers, so good examples rarely surface on the market.

The headline lot is an XXL Goyard trunk — essentially a wardrobe recreated in miniature for a pet — estimated at €2,500 to €3,500 (roughly $2,900 to $4,000). The Goyard travel bags are also singled out, prized for their colours and the way they balance playful with elegant. Hermès pieces, particularly the collars and leads, are expected to draw two kinds of buyers: serious collectors and owners who genuinely intend to use them, since those items sit naturally within the wider Hermès leather universe.

There's a cultural argument behind the sale, too. Pirson and Tixier see the collection as proof of how much pets' status has grown — the care once lavished on our own wardrobes and luggage now extends to the animals themselves. The French even have a saying for it: 'Tel maître, tel chien' — like owner, like dog. The pieces you pick for your pet, they suggest, say as much about your taste as the ones you pick for yourself. A dog, admittedly, has no opinion on French leatherwork. The person holding the leash does.

The auction house expects the audience to stretch beyond pet owners to collectors of fashion and leather goods generally, which makes sense given the names involved. Timing-wise, the Paris pet set couldn't ask for better: the sale opens on the same day as the city's Sausage Walk, when dachshunds in full couture take over the streets, so the city's best-dressed dogs will have nearly two weeks to scout their next acquisition.

For travellers, it's a fun reason to be in Paris in October — and a reminder that the city's luxury shopping scene extends well beyond the flagship boutiques. Even if you're not bidding, browsing an auction preview is one of the more underrated free things to do in the city, and this one promises pieces you won't see anywhere else.