But so did the items that people made with them.
We walked on.
Montmartre sloped and twisted around us, the afternoon stretching thin and golden, like it was holding something back. René didn’t speak for a few minutes, which I was learning meant he was thinking—or deciding how hard to push next.
Finally, he stopped.
Not abruptly. Just enough that I had to stop too.
“Tell me,” he said, not looking at me. “What have you learned this week?”
My brain stuttered.
Everything felt too big to condense. Too layered. But I didn’t have the luxury of spiraling.
“That context matters,” I said slowly. “Where something lives changes how it should be seen.”
He nodded once.
“Continue.”
“That clothes don’t exist alone,” I added. “They exist on bodies. In motion. In places. And if you ignore that, you miss the point.”
“Mm.”
“And that people lie,” I said, glancing at him, “but not always with their words.”
His mouth twitched. “You are fond of that idea.”
“It’s still true.”
He considered that.
I took a breath. “I’ve learned that good work isn’t loud. It doesn’t explain itself. And that taste—real taste—isn’t about trends. It’s about consistency.”
René finally turned to face me. “And?”
“And that I hesitate less than I think,” I said. “But more than I should.”
Silence settled between us. Not awkward. Weighted.
He studied me like he did photographs—looking past the obvious, hunting for the thing underneath.
“Good,” he said eventually. “You are paying attention.”
Encouragement, from him, felt dangerous. Like a drug you weren’t supposed to like.
I hesitated, then decided to risk it.
“What do you want me to learn?” I asked.
The question hung there. Naked. Unprotected.
René didn’t answer right away.
He looked at me for a long moment. Longer than comfortable. Longer than necessary. Like he was deciding how much truth I could carry without dropping it.
Finally, he spoke.
