Somewhere between Grasse and the sea, in a garden that Colette Beaumont has tended for over forty years, three generations of women sit together on a Sunday in May. The jasmine is almost too fragrant. The light does what southern light does — it makes everything look like a memory, even while it's still happening. "I never bought sunglasses for fashion," Colette says, adjusting her tortoiseshell frames with the calm precision of someone who has worn the same silhouette for decades. "I bought them because this garden demands them. You cannot read beneath a fig tree in July without proper lenses. The rest — the shape, the colour — is simply who you are."

Hélène, her daughter, sees it differently — or perhaps not so differently at all. Sitting in a deckchair at the edge of the wheat field that borders the property, she holds a wildflower stem close to her lips, her oversized amber-tinted aviators catching the late afternoon gold. "Maman taught me that an object you wear every day becomes part of your face. Not an accessory — an expression. I choose warm lenses because I want the world to look the way this garden feels in June. Everything a little softer, a little more golden." She pauses. "My daughters think this is romantic nonsense. But then they steal my glasses."