Balenciaga was on Boulevard des Moulins and the casual wear came easier because he had more opinions about it — trainers he understood, track trousers he understood, but she redirected him twice away from things that were too close to training gear and toward things that looked like someone who was nineteen and had good taste rather than someone who'd been issued kit and worked outward from there.
They were leaving the Hermès store — she had looked at a bag, he had stood near the entrance feeling slightly out of context — when the photographer appeared on the pavement across the street, and neither of them registered it immediately until the second shot when the shutter sound carried over the pavement noise.
Sophia noticed first and she didn't stop walking, just said "don't react" in a tone that meant she'd navigated this before, and he matched her pace and kept his eyes forward and they turned the corner onto a quieter street and the photographer didn't follow.
