The Daughter of District Six, Kewpie and friends © Kewpie Collection, GALA Queer ArchiveOnce upon a time, at the southernmost tip of Africa, nestled in a hollow between the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and slopes of Table Mountain lived an awesome bourgeoning community of thespia … | Continue reading
© Serbia Film Commission In today's internet rabbit hole adventure, I ventured far from home and ended up on a Serbian website for filming locations. To my surprise, one of the locations for hire just so happened to be an ex-dictator's private luxury train. Sitting in a rather ru … | Continue reading
1. Paris Dead EndsParis has over 600 dead end streets. Photographer Karin Borghouts began photographing the pedestrian streets of Paris in 2011. Her Paris Impasse photo book shows more than 200 dead ends, from the 1st to the 20th arrondissements. The photos offer | Continue reading
© Antonio AleluIn the most arid part of Aragon, a northeast state of Spain, a ghost town with an unusual history waits to be explored. In a country full of vibrant traditions and an active monarchy, a small ruined city may seem unworthy of a place on the itinerary, but Belchite's … | Continue reading
La Boheme, 2002Our return to the world of theatre can't come soon enough, but there is one stage in particular that should be right up there on your bucket list. The Bregenz Festival is home to the world's largest floating stage, built in epic proportions since 1946 on Lake Const … | Continue reading
For over 50 years, a 27-mile network of pneumatic tubes provided upwards of a third of New York City’s mail. Nowadays, speed is the name of the game, whether its technology constantly increasing the speed of digital communication or Amazon delivering goods at record rates. But 10 … | Continue reading
Jeanne HébuterneJeanne was sixteen when she fell for Modigliani – the sexiest man in Montparnasse, fourteen years her senior. She conducted their relationship in secret, breezing back and forth from Modigliani’s studio to her parents’ apartment near the Place de la Contrescarpe. … | Continue reading
1. Fran Lebowitz & Iman for French Vogue, 1983Photographed by Antony Armstrong Jones and styled by Andre Leon Talley. Found on Tumblr. 2. Russia’s Lost crown jewels of the Imperial FamilyCollected during the Romanov dynasty, beginning with the reign of Peter the Great, pe | Continue reading
Look online and the Hotel Desyatka appears on booking sites like most other hotels. A quick Google search will tell you that it consists of, “Basic lodging on leafy grounds, offering a cozy restaurant/pub, plus free parking and breakfast.” There’s even a Trip Advisor entry comple … | Continue reading
Rare Antique Masonic Six Day Intaglio Wax Seal WheelWhen we stopped writing letters, it wasn't just our penmanship that went down the toilet, but the entire art of letter-writing, and all the romance and ceremony that came with it. Arguably the loveliest victim to have disappeare … | Continue reading
Norma Shearer in Riptide (1934)If Norma Shearer doesn't ring a bell like other legendary names of the silver screen might, then you too, have fallen victim to the Hays Code. Before we even knew it as “Hollywood”, the American film industry was producing a surreal amount of extrao … | Continue reading
1. Found in a French mansion in that was shuttered for a centuryTwo stuffed frogs with "human attitudes" play out a miniature battle in a work by a Parisian taxidermistA late 19th-century French mansion shuttered for more than a century has opened its doors to the public, reveali … | Continue reading
Feeling down about the prospect of another summer without Paris? We have something from the archives that might cheer your up. Made in 1958 by French cartoonist Albert Champeaux, “Paris Flash” is a satirical cartoon about Parisian life and tourism of the era. This would have been … | Continue reading
Medici Fountain, Jardin de LuxembourgAs if plucked from a 17th century Mediterranean estate waiting to transport Parisians to the hills of Florence; tucked away in a corner of Paris' Luxembourg gardens is one of the city's most underrated beauty spots. The Medici Fountain, crowne … | Continue reading
© Cécile PaulGiven you’re a determined adventurer, should you find yourself in Cape Town, we figured you might be interested in stepping off the beaten track on a quest to find a slice of kitschy nostalgia. In one of the oldest suburbs of the city (and becoming the hippest), we'r … | Continue reading
Marie-Desiree Bourgoin - Sarah Bernhardt Sculpting in Her StudioThis is a case for "more is more", masterfully argued by the brushstrokes of history's finest interiors artists. Before we had glossy decor magazines to pour over, we had a pictorial genre known as interior portraitu … | Continue reading
The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome © JJambienWander through the quaint, old fashioned town of Rhinebeck in New York’s Hudson Valley, and you may feel as though you’ve stepped back to another era. Especially when you look up into the sky: for its quite common to see vintage airplanes cir … | Continue reading
1. Queen Victoria's Boer War chocolate found in atticA 121-year-old chocolate bar that was given to British troops to boost morale during the Boer Wars in South Africa has been discovered in the attic of a National Trust property.The chocolate, still in its original wrapper and t | Continue reading
© Regis DuvignauOne of the world's most prestigious wine cellars isn't where you think it might be. It isn't nestled beneath a grand chateau or presidential palace, but buried in the backyard of an average Joe, a retiree of humble background who has been collecting the rarest win … | Continue reading
Every now and then, you can stumble upon something that stops you in your Instagram-scrolling tracks. For us, it just so happened to be a collection of unloved vintage books that have found novel purpose thanks to Parisian artist Inès Mélia ... as one-of-a kind hanky holders. Bu … | Continue reading
It’s amazing to see how our minds can wander in different ways; how many variations of a story can come from a single picture. We recently proposed a new challenge for our readers to become the storyteller, prompted by a historical found photograph with a brief caption as the onl … | Continue reading
The Saltar House in Castlecraig, Australia, is one of the few houses designed by Mahony that is still standing and has been restored.You would think that being Frank Lloyd Wright's earliest protégé; the woman behind so many of most of the iconic drawings to come out of his practi … | Continue reading
1. The Original Rhinestone Cowboy, Loy BowlinBowlin (1909-1995) was an outsider artist from McComb, Mississippi. His artwork largely included bejeweling his clothing, Cadillac, home and even his dentures with thousands of rhinestones. The house, which was in Mississippi, has | Continue reading
Corzetti pasta. One of the three people in Italy still make this beautiful corzetti stamps by hand © Pasta GranniesPasta makes everything better. This we know. But in the ancient villages of Sardinia, where the art of handmade pasta is practically a sacred ritual, there are ances … | Continue reading
Paris during the Exposition Universelle in 1900 in Paris.During the pandemic, the Eiffel Tower has been undergoing a fresh paint job ahead of the 2024 Olympics that harkens back to its golden hue of the early 20th century. But at that time, the Eiffel Tower was more than just an … | Continue reading
Once upon a time in ye olde England, it was illegal to be Catholic. In case you need a quick refresher: King Henry VIII needed a male heir to the. He blamed Catherine of Aragon (his brother's widow and the first of his six wives) for not bearing him a son. On these grounds, he as … | Continue reading
These are a few of my favourite things about a 1970s French musical called "Donkey Skin": A giant cat throne, a surreal banquet with candy-coloured flora, a snow globe grave, talking roses and parrots, Catherine Deneuve as a Disney-esque princess, the deeply saturated colour pale … | Continue reading
1. The Flintlock alarm clock that ignited gunpowder to wake you upStart your morning off with a bang. Made in the 1600s. Found on Museum Archive. 2. Eerie, Indiana, a 90s TV show dubbed "Twin Peaks for kids"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-nAo0Y4gc0It featured two young ki | Continue reading
It’s becoming an annual tradition to take a summer trip down south with my girlfriends and this year is no different. We’re six friends with a similar budget (around 65 euros a night per person), looking for somewhere charming for one week with a pool, a good kitchen for cooking … | Continue reading
Visiona 2 por Verner Panton 1970You probably know his famous chair; the first chair to be made completely out of plastic in one single piece. But have you ever taken a deep dive into the trippy design world of Danish design icon, Verner Panton? His influence is all around us in t … | Continue reading
Aaaaand relax. Turn on some Sade, put your feet up and make yourself comfortable in the dreamscapes of 3D artist Maciek Martyniuk, also known as Yomagick. Here at the MessyNessy HQ in Paris we're awaiting news of another partial lockdown, so we could use a little brain-soothing e … | Continue reading
Not-so-fun fact: Until January 31st of 2013, it was illegal for women in France to wear trousers. It made headlines at the time when a 200 year-old law requiring women to ask police for special permission to “dress as men” or else risk being taken into custody, was finally revoke … | Continue reading
Once known as the ‘Versailles of the Caribbean’, its hollow ruins are one of the few lasting remnants of a forgotten royal court – the first Black monarchy established in the Western world that rose from the ashes of the Haitian Revolution. The brief reign of the first and only K … | Continue reading
1. Scottish Island For Sale with an opening bid of £80,000Deer island is located on the west coast of the idyllic Scottish Highlands, uninhabited rugged, approximately 11 acres. More details found here. 2. This Website where Strangers Upload Recordings of their Windows ViewsS | Continue reading
In my ongoing quest to help bring you to Paris by any means, today we're diving into one of my favourite resources for revisiting la vielle ville (the old town). The 'Institut national de l'audiovisuel' (INA) is a repository of all French radio and television audiovisual archives … | Continue reading
Let's pretend for a moment, that in our virtual cabinet of curiosities, we had an imaginary artist-in-residence programme. And on the top shelf of our giant cabinet, we kept a little guest studio to invite exceptional talent that speaks to us in ways that only a truly peculiar ty … | Continue reading
A Paris apartment hiding a revolutionary secret, a stone's throw from the 17th century arches of the Porte Saint-Denis © Sloft It was supposed to be a straight-forward renovation project for Paris-based architect Agathe Marimbert. Her clients were first-time buyers, a young coupl … | Continue reading
Pink for girls, blue for boys. Heels for women, flats for men. Corsets for ladies, burly silhouettes for gents? Turn back the clock and you'll find history is full of contradictions. In fact, until the 20th century, pink was a boy's colour, high heels were invented for men and ye … | Continue reading
1. This listing for a converted 1960 era Atlas E Missile Site Located two miles southwest of Kimball, Nebraska. Unclear whether it's still for sale. Found here. 2. Girl Finds Secret Room In Her NYC Apartmenthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxzfrAwTRtY3. The Art Nouve | Continue reading
It's happened to the very best of us, when the stark light of day wakes us from a slumber with a dry mouth, a sore head and a foreboding sense of shame for our previous night’s antics. For last night, far too much liquor had been consumed, and the party was perhaps a little too h … | Continue reading
Shavlo Lake in Northern Chuysky RangeWe're constantly looking for untapped corners of the globe. The road less travelled. Proof that tourism hasn't conquered everything. Today that search took us to the Altai Mountains, in the least-populous republic of Russia, where the frontier … | Continue reading
If you know us, you know we love weird architectural history from the height of the utopian design age, but the idea of spending lockdown inside a radical sci-fi social experiment might take some convincing. This odd cluster of spherical houses is known as Bolwoningen, built in 1 … | Continue reading
Nope, sorry, I refuse to stop imagining that I live in the past. This time – inside Grandmère Léone's village bistrot in Provence. It's about that time of year when Parisians start looking south to plan a summer escape from the city, and on my annual holiday house hunt, I stumble … | Continue reading
1. These Kitschy Jell-O molds are actually LampsMade by mixed media artist Elrod (aka Mexakitsch.com). Found via PeeWee Herman's blog! 2. Billy Meier's UFOs Eduard Albert Meier, commonly nicknamed "Billy", is the founder of a UFO religi | Continue reading
The blue room at Château Le BreauWe think of the Impressionists and we picture landscapes, dreamy outdoor scenes, or Degas and his ballerinas. But there was no shortage of Impressionists dedicated to the survey of interiors, and perhaps the most prolific among them as it happens, … | Continue reading
"The curse. Bloody Mary. Time of the Month. Shark Week. Code Red. Aunt Flo." All over the world, euphemisms exist to discretely convey those four simple words: "I have my period". In the media, the word ‘period’ was not mentioned on television until the 1980s and it seems the wes … | Continue reading
News, updates, happenings and tit bits from the MessyNessyChic HQ!A new series in the Vault, exclusively for Keyholders. Pssst! You've stumbled across content that is exclusive to Nessy's Keyholders.There’s a new way to access the really special stuff from Messy Nessy Chic … | Continue reading
Fuggerei © Massimo SantiIf you’re reading this from your high-rise, high-priced city shoebox with each limb touching a wall, apologies in advance. In a world where subsidised housing blocks are labelled eye sores, and the architecturally attractive projects of the past are privat … | Continue reading