Parisienne en Eté

An exhibition celebrating Paris’s slow, hot summer months through vintage photography. ‘Parisienne en Eté’ recalls the long tradition of men having a dip by Notre-Dame, kids splashing about by Pont Neuf or women sunbathing in a bikini by the Louvre. August is often maligned by Parisians as an empty time when everyone leaves the city, but the exhibiton at the Cité de la Mode et du Design shows an idyllic month, captured in 48 black and white photos taken between 1880 and 1960 by Boris Liptnitzki and Henri Roger of the Viollet-Roger agency. The show is free, and outside, so you can take in the pictures of bathing while enjoying the view of the Quai d’Austerlitz. The images are idealistic, intimate, insouciant and full of simple pleasures – dipping your toes in the Concorde fountain, hanging out at the Piscine Molitor, wandering in Montmartre, sleeping in a forest, floating toy boats in the Tuileries – and will reinvigorate the imaginations of anyone tiring of overheated city life.