Anton Prinner by Emile SavitryFrom the darkness, it reared its head. An aquiline nose, about a foot in length, jutted forth from the androgynous sculpture like only a Picasso can – yet, a Picasso it was not. The startling work was made by Anton Prinner, yet another of the art wor … | Continue reading
For as far back as Google's records go, the search word "Chernobyl" has never trended higher. In the past month, the data graph has spiked like a reading on a level 5 earthquake. Of course, it's all down to HBO's Chernobyl, which after only one month on air, has become the highes … | Continue reading
It's easy to forget in the ever buzzing Paris, but France is a country of farmers. They have more cheese varieties than they can keep track of, possess one-third of all agricultural land in the EU, and have a reality TV show called L'Amour est dans le pré – literally, Love Is in … | Continue reading
1. Frederick the Great, hailed as “the most handsome horse in the world”The Friesian stallion has his own Facebook page here.2. Marcel Duchamp with chess master Larry Evans Also pictured, avant garde painter, Hans Richter. Found on Cocosse Journal3 | Continue reading
How many times have you seen you today? The fact is, the modern mirror as we know it today didn't arrive until 1835, which means throughout most of history, people have been getting damn creative to know what they look like – if that's what they were really looking for at all. Th … | Continue reading
You might have noticed that for the cover of our second book, Don't be a Tourist in New York, I chose to feature uptown's Little Red Lighthouse. It's the only one left on the island of Manhattan, but serves as a reminder that New York was first a port before anything else. “A cit … | Continue reading
I remember the moment I knew we had to write this book. I was fumbling around in the dark for a light switch in the attic of a salvage depot in Harlem. I was completely alone up there when those lights flickered on to reveal a room full of cobwebbed forgotten treasures, and in th … | Continue reading
Manuel Palomino Arjona via Flickr On a dimly lit stage, dozens of cloaked figures rise in unison under a somber, blue glow. As the spotlight grows brighter, the dancers are revealed; all unshakeable smiles and sparkles in their conical gowns that seemingly glide – no, float – a … | Continue reading
1. A dandelion wish-making facility in L.A."The anonymous art collective simply known as the Art Department transformed a decommissioned building into “a secret wish-processing facility."Find the article on HyperAllergic2. Object, 1936This Surrealist objec | Continue reading
We walked with ghosts through a crumbling spa town in the valley of the Cerna river, where Empresses and Kings of Bohemia once came to “take the waters”. An early morning mist rose from the sulphurs of the riverbed, crawling through the empty streets. Whistling through shattered … | Continue reading
On a quiet street in Brooklyn, lies a very peculiar treasure chest. It safeguards the boots of Mexican revolutionaries, and the sound bites of rebels; it collects buttons, posters, and anything upon which one could scrawl a grassroots manifesto. It’s New York City’s “Interferenc … | Continue reading
It's been almost two years since our "Location Scouting with Anderson" post went nuts all over the internet, and with summer fast-approaching and travel on all our minds, I thought it might be time for a new round of Wes Anderson-worthy locations – the vacation edition. So let's … | Continue reading
La Petite Rose des SablesThey're not hip, they're not sexy and they're certainly not in the Michelin guides – they are the underdogs; the restaurants that call out to us for some reason or another. They might be hiding away in an unpopular neighbourhood, serving cuisine from a co … | Continue reading
Elizabeth L. Remba Gardner of Rockford, Illinois, WASP. Wikipedia. Where this is a will, there's a way -- but for pilot Jacqueline Cochrane, there had to be even more. "To live without risk, for me," she said, "would be tantamount to death." One of the biggest risks of her career … | Continue reading
1. What it's like to live at Everest base campEvery year a pop-up city is built at the foot of the world's tallest mountain... Life at base camp is an odd mix of mundane domesticity, logistical challenges, and the occasional flash of life-or-death drama.National Geographic takes … | Continue reading
Nipple slips must have been a real problem in the 17th century. Or rather, not so much a problem per say, as an everyday practice. If you've ever walked around a portrait gallery of Renaissance European art or watched a few period films set around that time when the cup did truly … | Continue reading
They said it was where California met the world. Where Egyptian antiquities mingled with cast sculptures by Bernini, and the gaze of medieval eyes met those of Hollywood's elite. Today, we're traveling into the nooks and crannies of La Cuesta Encantada – The Enchanted Hill. 1. It … | Continue reading
Yvette in 1977. ©Getty Images. First things first: it's not like we hate the accordion. We like it on the occasional metro platform, and we love to hear it in a distant summer breeze by the Seine. Few things are as effective at stirring up good 'ole Parisian nostalgia, even afte … | Continue reading
Did they ever tell you about the nice Jersey boy who brought Modern Art to America's shores? It wasn't a Rockefeller, or a Guggenheim – just a kid from Hoboken, New Jersey with an eye for talent. Behind the doors of a little 5th floor attic-level apartment on 291 Fifth Avenue, he … | Continue reading
How does one shop for souvenirs in Paris without feeling like a tourist? How do you bring home something meaningful, something unique you discovered down the rabbit hole that won't declare "I Heart Paris" in giant letters across your chest? As peak season for Paris tourism kicks … | Continue reading
If you were out of a job in 19th century England and seeking new employment, there was a chance you might find a peculiar advertisement in the newspaper that read something like: "WANTED! Ornamental garden hermit". The profession would essentially require you to become a human or … | Continue reading
1. Eiffel Tower Spotting on its 130th BirthdayAs the iron lady turns 130 this week, here is a photography project by Jasper White looking at intimate and unique views of the Eiffel Tower from the homes of Parisian residents. He has a book coming out on the project soon. | Continue reading
In Physiopolis, life was better in the buff. Or at least in a bikini, which was as close as one could legally get to public nudity in 1930s Paris. It was here, on an isolated sun-baked island on the Seine, that a titillating new naturiste-nudiste (naturalist and nude) movement sp … | Continue reading
One of my favourite things about Eadweard Muybridge, the man who gave us the moving image, aside from the vast array of exotic spellings he adopted for his birth name (Edward Muggeridge), is the idea of him travelling around the American wild west in a 19th century carriage which … | Continue reading
Le monde poétique II, 1937.Creative inspiration lives on a carrousel. Meaning, bygone trends and inventions always rear their heads at another point in history, finding relevancy for a new generation -- and, yes, usually the generation in question is millennials, who've successfu … | Continue reading
We love a fashion moment wrapped in a mystery, which is precisely what happened when fate, or chance, or whatever, first brought us to our dream handbag. There, in the sea musty bins at the Brooklyn Flea, it glimmered: a purse made up of cream coloured coils...dare we say, telep … | Continue reading
He was so good at imagining overly complicated and outlandish contraptions that his name became part of the English dictionary in the early 20th century to describe anything with an unnecessarily elaborate design. "That's a real Heath-Robinson!" one could say to describe an appar … | Continue reading
Otto Kitsinger/AP Images for Idaho Potato CommissionBeauty's in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Especially if that beholder happens to own Idaho's chicest new B&B, The Big Idaho Potato Hotel. At a glance, the spud seems like another loveable wonky, abandoned roadside gem fr … | Continue reading
1. Post Modern cakes by a Fashion designer turned BakerDiscover the delicious world of Ard Bakery found via Present & Correct.2. This Home built around a Boulder © Modernism week© Palm Springs Art Museum© Palm Springs Art MuseumDesert Modernist AlbertF | Continue reading
I woke up one morning in Paris, headed to the boulangerie, when I noticed a strange new structure had been installed on the sidewalk overnight. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. One of those self-cleaning public toilets? A construction crew's cabin for yet another ro … | Continue reading
Just when you start to feel like a fairly competent human, something like Shuudan Koudou slides into your Instagram feed to prove you wrong. Literally translated as "collective action", Shuudan Koudou is the Japanese sport – no, art form – of walking. That is, walking forwards an … | Continue reading
The Walled Garden © bloomologieflowersI can picture myself now: waking up with the birds, throwing on a pair of wellies and zipping up my fleece as I walk out to a little hamlet of 13 Victorian greenhouses. The lines of the glass catch the morning sunlight just so, as dawn breaks … | Continue reading
© Brandon AguilarThey're the Renaissance women of the wild, wild west, and today Amie and Jolie Sikes are giving Messy Nessy a taste of their little haven in Round Top, Texas: The Wander Inn. It’s the stuff of southern fairytales, a bed & breakfast where the longhorns graze and t … | Continue reading
On 15th April 2019, millions of people around the worldwatched as Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral was engulfed in flames. Masses gatheredon the banks of the Seine to sing hymns to Our Lady as a reported 500firefighters battled the 15-hour blaze. That evening, as first the roof and th … | Continue reading
Ball's Pyramid, 1930s. Lord Howe Island Museum. Beneath the crystalline waters of the South Pacific, 32 scientists from 12 countries emerged after a nine-week voyage to the depths. They'd been drilling for samples from a long-lost world, on a quest that sounds a whole lot like th … | Continue reading
1. Anyone like this idea of Notre Dame's roof as a greenhouse?As you might have heard, France announced an international competition to be held to find a replacement for the Notre Dame spire destroyed in the cathedral fire. Some of the designs making the rounds on the internet so … | Continue reading
Once upon a time, the banks of the river Seine were lined with giant floating swimming pools. In the 19th century, one could take swimming lessons next to the Pont Neuf and in the 1970s, sunbathe topless on the upper deck of the Piscine Deligny, which was moored in the 7th arrond … | Continue reading
So you’re thinking about a trip to Portugal. When travelling in Europe, Portugal tends to be an afterthought for Mediterranean sun seekers, whose first instincts are to look at France, Italy, Greece or Spain. Portugal once owned half of the new world and it’s the oldest country i … | Continue reading
For many, "Soviet fashion" reads like an oxymoron. One simply can't imagine that funding fashion ateliers was high up on Joseph Stalin's to-do list, and it wasn't, but still -- it was there, and apparently it was utterly extravagant. “Eclectic mannequins were turning slowly as th … | Continue reading
Photographs by Robert Demachy, 1900, Gum bichromate printIt would take most people a moment to figure out that these aren't charcoal sketches by Degas or some other impressionist artist. They are in fact photographs from the late 19th century, artfully manipulated to look like pa … | Continue reading
Image: candidplatypusGreetings from Shingo, a rural village, 650km north of Tokyo that is believed by its inhabitants to be the last resting place of Jesus Christ. Make the pilgrimage to its quiet hills, and you'll find yourself in a veritable slice of the Twilight Zone where the … | Continue reading
1. That 1970s Vegas Underground Bunker Home is for sale againThis time it's listed for $18 million. Before the house became internet famous, our original article on the property from 2013 reveals that it first went on sale for just $1.7 million. 2. Parisian woman with her cat in | Continue reading
Tsumago ghost town © semituneWe've got an achilles heel for places stuck in the past, and today on our armchair adventures, we're stopping off in the sleepy streets of Japan's cinematic post towns, known locally as Shukuba (宿場). What is a post town, you ask? Essentially it's a pi … | Continue reading
It took me several days to think of the bees. After the smoke had cleared and the heartbreak settled in, I remembered: they kept beehives up there. So you might be wondering too: were the honeybees spared from the fire that ravaged Notre Dame and left the world in disbelief on th … | Continue reading
To celebrate MessyNessyChic's next book finally heading off to the printers, I thought we'd switch this week's "Collector's item du Jour" series with a special sneak peek at Don't be a Tourist in New York. So I've combed through the manuscript and plucked out my favourite collect … | Continue reading
On the beaches of Albania © Artemis DesteredesOnce upon a time, during the Cold War, Albania’s paranoid dictator Enver Hoxha forced his country to build 700,000 bunkers, one for every four citizens. Today, the country is still trying to figure out what to do with his concrete mus … | Continue reading
I wish I had taken your picture a thousand more times, my beautiful neighbour. For all the history lovers, architecture lovers (who feel that buildings have souls), Paris lovers: we are all no doubt feeling the same helplessness and sadness for Notre Dame. I think of the artisans … | Continue reading
1. Unearthing the 1929 Julian Price HouseThe historic 1929 Julian Price home appeared on Hoarders. The current owners maintain a Facebook page here. 2. A Real-life Rapunzel TowerThe medieval dungeon at the Chateau de Tracy in the Loire Valley. Today, the domaine makes a very | Continue reading