I regret to jump back into blogging without some explanation for my absence — so I’ll leave you these (hopefully) tantalizing clues: midnight bus, black mold, Stilton cheese — and leave the rest to your imagination (and a later posting). In the meantime, I can no longer prolong talking about the fashion of impressionism exhibit I attended a few weeks ago. My absolute favorite train-station-turned-art-museum (also known to some as the d’Orsay) has never failed to produce my favorite exhibit of the moment in Paris. From now until the 20th of January you can wander through an exhaustively impressive collection of both deliberate and inadvertent evidence of fashion from the turn of the last century, including newspaper clippings, advertisements, early magazines (of hair styles, bonnet of the moment etc.), clothing itself, and dozens and dozens of examples of impressionist paintings that were created for one purpose or another, but over time have revealed a crystalized representation of fashion from their birth. The exhibit features several examples of clothing from the era (which always impress me with how small they are — GMO food effects over the past half century never more obvious than when standing in front of a tailored 1910′s dress half your size) including, in several cases, either a replica or the exact dress worn by the model in a painting showcased nearby. As the majority of the signage was in French, I can’t be sure which was the case, but if these were the actual dresses, consider my mind blown.

Fortunately for my American compatriots, the Impressions & Fashion exhibit comes to the MET starting February 26th. Let them eat bonnets.