You’ll find what you are after, as the song has it … I’m just back from a lovely trip to New York (thank you, Mr. Hat!) and Providence, where I enjoyed myself in the city, and was royally feted for my birthday by very dear friends.

One of the things we did was leg it over to FIT, where we reveled in the museum’s current exhibitions.  “Seduction” is a lovely, if brief, examination of some of the varied ways in which the charm and wit of provocative dress can seduce both wearer and viewer. (They did have a corset on view, yes – black embroidered cotton sateen, black lace – but no, it was not available for museum-goer try-on.)

But “Gothic: Dark Glamour” was the stunner. Rick Owens, Victorian mourning dress, Rodarte and blood in the water, strange beauty, Yoshiki Hishinuma, and, and, and … The creativity of the exhibit’s layout was a fitting accompaniment to the fashion on view, and both were highlighted by the exhibit’s commentary, abetted by the Cocteau quote insisting that “One must forgive fashion everything, because it dies so young.”  Though I prefer Walter Benjamin, noted by curator Dr. Valerie Steele, pointing out that “the essence of fashion is fetishism, because it is based on the sex appeal of the inorganic.” Which speaks as well to both the puppet and the theatre: both can be avatars of charm and menace, or embarrassing monsters of kitsch – as can the gothic; insert your own wince-inducing example here – but when handled with care and goosed as necessary, the resultant frisson is like nothing else, and lingers in the memory like a stranger’s kiss.

Would that my camera had not chosen that week to break – though the stern guards at FIT were allowing no photographs anyway.  I suppose that’s what memory is for?