The things you learn. Today’s edition: Pierre Cardin was the first French designer to diversify the runway. When it comes to things like fashion my default mode tends toward crunchy Marxist in that pre–New Left way: I like / appreciate / etc it, but there’s always a “but really” loitering in the background, whispering economics matters more than culture. But it doesn’t need to be formulated that way, as an either/or. More than that, that either/or way of thinking is arguably the bugbear that’s hobbling leftishnness. It isn’t that hard to understand that everyone contributes in their own context and register, and the challenge is to recognize their contributions on their own terms. And what’s clear in these photos — of one-of-a-kind caftans Cardin designed, which Todd Hughes and P David collect — is just how seriously Cardin took that: he didn’t just diversify the runway as a tokenist project, his love of color transcended that and demanded something closer to equality. I’ve never watched their documentary on Cardin, but now I will.