Looking back in time, one era merged the arts and fashion into a single medium better than any other. The Impressionist movement, which endured from 1867 to 1886, primarily in France, is now being celebrated with Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, an exhibit that opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week, its second stop after Paris’s Museé D’Orsay. It’s there that you’ll find an assortment of paintings and sartorial artifacts connecting the worlds of art and fashion into a single channel.

Say it ain’t so! Along with Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement comes another surprise: it turns out that the pontiff never actually wore shoes by Prada, as it was widely reported throughout his eight-year papacy. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour explained on-air: “We have said for years ever since we watched this this Pope be elected in 2005, that he was wearing red Prada shoes. I’m afraid we’ve been wrong.”

Amounpour’s guest Monsignor Kevin Irwin concurred, explaining “They are red shoes given to him because Contantine gave him the privileges of being an emperor and he allowed him to wear red shoes and a red cape, but frankly the papal shoemaker is up the block. And it’s not Prada.”

The Parisian label chose to hold its Fall 2013 catwalk show inside a special venue erected amid the historic buildings on the Place Vauban, a grand square which was transformed into a zoo pre-show on Friday afternoon, with photographers and show-goers pushing their way through the crowds to enter the space doused in inviting blue light.

Inside, they found silver balloons reflecting an imaginary blue sky and clouds onto the catwalk--a stark contrast to the monotone gray skies outside, framing the mostly black and white tones of the collection.

It was showtime on Thursday night at the Lanvin Autumn/Winter 2013 catwalk in Paris, but it was hard to gauge the mood of designer Alber Elbez as guests arrived.

Retro waiters served sugary popcorn and soft drinks at the historic Ecole des Beaux Arts, a fabled art school with little in common with your local multiplex, where the fashion flock were stacked up to the rafters on wooden benches, nattering to the sounds of live mellow music performed from the runway by some hipsters with a double base.

In what could be called the pre-show to the Nina Ricci Autumn/Winter 2013/14 catwalk, guests gathered in the great hall of Paris Fashion Week – a giant tent erected in the Tuileries named the Espace Ephémère Tuileries – as if for the theater, perched on black benches doused in red light, their chatter mingling with the eclectic and sometimes chaotic sounds from the Philip Glass composition “Two Movements for Two Pianos,” which provided the dreamlike and occasionally urban mood for this elegant show, inspired by dance and presented to convey the feeling of a performance.

Models gathered at the end of the runway after the presentation like a theater troupe ready to take a bow.

Beyonce, Salma Hayek, team with Gucci: Beyonce Knowles, Salma Hayek Pinault, and Gucci’s Frida Giannini have teamed up to create a new global initiative called Chime For Change, which will create awareness surrounding women’s empowerment. The campaign is funded by Gucci and will be formally announced Thursday afternoon when Hayek Pinalt speaks at the TEDxWomen conference. Another announcement will follow in mid-March “regarding a global event that promises to put girls’ and women’s issues on the world stage,” reports The Telegraph. [Telegraph]

Vivienne Westwood Continues Support of Assange: English designer Vivienne Westwood is continuing her support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange by speaking out against English socialite and writer Jemima Khan, who recently penned a blogpost for the New Statesman against her onetime friend Assange. “I was sad and puzzled when my friend Jemima Khan joined the ranks of these irresponsible women…I hope she will change her mind,” Westwood wrote on her blog Get a Life. “Do they really want our hero to satisfy their wish and vindicate himself by spending the rest of his life in a US super-max jail? Julian is in danger because through WikiLeaks he exposed the killing our authorities over up in wars which cause death and rape.” Westwood recently issued a line of T-shirts in Assange’s support. [Vogue UK]