Photo: Frist Center for the Visual Arts, The Golden Age of Couture, Cristobal Balenciaga, silk taffeta, 1953-54, copyright; V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, [courtesy, Frist Center].

Nashville's Labor Day Weekend weather was the kind that once upon a time made me lust for a convertible. Dreams do come true, which my six-year-old Toyota Solara, which is fast approaching 150k, proves. Four days of top-down divinity were a blissful excuse to rack on up the miles. Yet, we were among a throng that ducked in from the sunshine and swarmed within the cool walls of the old Art Deco post office that is the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

I convinced Husband 2.0 to come along to see the film demonstrating how glass artist phenomenon Dale Chihuly crafts his masterpieces. In the end, he was happy. Then, while he perused the large, odd and somewhat surreal glass structures, I mangled with the masses downstairs. The Frist was like I'd never seen it. Old women. Young women. And all the generations between. These women were buzzing. These women were serious. These women were proven lovers of fashion. They clutched their slendar guides and consulted its pages as they approached each photograph and each couture gown, Coco Chanel suit and other mavens and masters of thread. For the fashion addicted, it was manna. Eyes darted and fingers pointed. Women with ear buds and wires dangling down their necks listened intently to electronic docents.

These women were at Frist on a mission. Elbow to fashionably coiffed elbow, these women were on a mission to see the Frist's Couture exhibit that leaves Nashville this Sunday, Sept. 12. And if you're in Nashville, so should you. The ambiance, well, it was almost as much a sight as the art of the fabric.