©-Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection“I’m much better than Cezanne,” she would say if you had the opportunity to cross paths with Lee Godie selling her canvases on the steps of the Chicago Art Institute. She was a homeless self-taught artist who floated about town for many … | Continue reading
Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger play tennis on the wing of a biplane in flight, 1925.Gladys Roy, pictured above on the far wing, is probably the only woman in the world who could say she's played tennis on an airplane– at least in our circle of friends. As it turns out, a lot of women … | Continue reading
1. Potemkin Villages: Fake towns and villages designed for police or military trainingThe concept of the "Potemkin Village" can be traced back to Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, a Russian field marshal and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. Anxious to spare the grim … | Continue reading
Show me an Instagram filter that can do this and I'll personally take you out to dinner so that we can become lifelong friends. Autochrome is a dead art – a secret recipe – if you will, that has been long lost to the modern world, left uncharted by 21st century technology and yet … | Continue reading
We look to movies for many things today -- an escape, a laugh, a glossed-over Hollywood take on the life of another music icon that died too soon. But American filmmaker John Cassavetes looked to the movies for one reason: to fail, and fail beautifully. “I feel that we must try m … | Continue reading
It’s 1945, and US Airforce pilot James Gaussman is just trying to focus. He’s flying a leg of his journey between India and China, when suddenly, a glimmer catches his eye. Emerging from the plains of China’s heartland he spots it: a tremendous pyramid that would put Giza’s to sh … | Continue reading
Somewhere in between a business card and a message in a bottle, here's a concept to boggle the millennial's mind. Long before we were friend requesting on Facebook, following influencers on Instagram and instantly communicating with strangers around the world by simply typing in … | Continue reading
A few words of advice: at a dinner party, always sit next to a snob instead of a bore if given the choice. Chances are, you’ll at least have a laugh. When decorating a room, always start with a rug; never over-dress, and, most of all, if you’ve got to get outta a dodge, hit the r … | Continue reading
1. Vintage Roller Skate BoxesFound on Anonymous Works. Lots for sale on Etsy too (with original skates).2. A 19th Century Tintype of an Orthopedic ShoeFound on Pinterest.3. Couture dresses made with Vintage MapsBy Elizabeth Lecourt. | Continue reading
This might not be my profession– pitching movies, that is– but if it were, I'd file the result of today's internet finds under "women to make movies about". Their stories have been buried in the past, eclipsed by others who perhaps achieved more or possessed qualities the world d … | Continue reading
Forget Valentine's Day– let's talk about John Frum Day. At this very moment, on a tiny island in the South Pacific, natives are preparing their annual celebration of a mysterious messiah expected to return on February 15th. In this remote corner of the world, it's believed a godl … | Continue reading
RMS OlympicWhat if we told you that history's most infamous ocean liner had a twin sister? What's more, one that lived (almost) happily ever after? Today we're hopping aboard the "Olympic," the identical ship that was made in tandem with its ill-fated sister. From those four icon … | Continue reading
The Love Letter by Jean-Honoré Fragonard We don't mean to put a damper on Valentine's Day, but the chances of most of us receiving an actual love letter this year are slim to none. These days, text messaging and multiple social media platforms have seen to it that emojis come bef … | Continue reading
Some artists leave us tangled legacies– reputations tied up in creative theft, family feuds and unresolved estates. Others, like Adolf Wölfli, leave us a veritable Pandora’s Box for consideration. At a glance, Wölfli's work oozes the sentiments of Psychedelic art; its kaleidoscop … | Continue reading
1. Discovery of a 3000-2000 BC ‘high priest’ in a vessel during the Uruk excavation of 1929/30 Found on Reddit's Museum of Artefacts.2. Ancient Mosaics just sitting unprotected by the shoreline"Yes, they are wonderful and in an ideal world they would be preserved"...F | Continue reading
Your eyes do not deceive you. These homes have indeed been cut down the middle like a knife through a buttercream cake, but in lieu of confetti sprinkles, the insides spill out water damage, rot, and everything that's wrong with our throw-away society. It's the greatest triumph, … | Continue reading
One of the most common misconceptions about Roma Gypsies today is that they come from the Eastern European country Romania, but historically, they originate from the Punjab region of Northern India. When they were displaced from their homeland thousands of years ago, they were ca … | Continue reading
We thought we'd seen it all when it comes to unusual and unique hotels. Then, we found Wing's Castle of New York. This storybook cottage had us rubbing our eyes– are those elephants? The castle began, as so many magical things did, as a 1969 reverie...We did a bit of digging on W … | Continue reading
In Tokyo, there are no rules when it comes to street fashion. Current trends have little or no influence and you certainly don't have to work in the fashion industry to throw down some serious looks. I stumbled upon the Tokyo Fashion Tumblr today, which has been faithfully docume … | Continue reading
At MessyNessyChic, we spend a lot of time in the 1960s, revisiting rock & roll communes, getting to know forgotten muses and venturing out on hippie trail, but we thought it was about time we did a retrospective of style from our favourite decade. The good, the bad and the intere … | Continue reading
Free for a dinner date tonight? We'll cosy up under the palm trees, beneath the eyes of Grecian statues and the bubbling of waterfalls; we'll stroll amongst Medici-inspired gardens and socialise with 200-and-something other guests who've ordered a Delmonico steak, or triple-decke … | Continue reading
"Then the Alka Seltzer shoots into the stomach!" are words you might not expect to hear from Salvador Dali from the comfort of your own living room. Yet, for anyone with a television in the 1960s and '70s, the Surrealist legend also became a staple of the small screen, sharing hi … | Continue reading
Some minds are cornucopias; sources of creative ephemera. Such is the case for artists and photographers Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, a dream team bringing fairytales to life for the new millennium. They agreed to open up the Pandora’s Box of their creative process to sha … | Continue reading
There was one fairytale character in particular that seemed to leave an impression on the ladies of the Victorian era. Rapunzel was originally written in 1790 by Friedrich Schulz and retold by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The story was told during the Georgian era where long, loos … | Continue reading
Peer inside and your senses inevitably tumble inside a place that's more time capsule than bar. In the warm glow of a colour we'll just call, "Yellow, 1979", exists a world apart from the modern and fast-paced New York City we know. You'll hear the salsa rhythm of a lively San Ju … | Continue reading
Baby, it’s cold outside! We're so nearly finished with the Don't be a Tourist in New York book, and while its contents must remain top secret, with temperatures plummeting so low, I felt we owed this little teaser to out New Yawkers. So come on in and warm up at New York’s cozie … | Continue reading
She was billed as the human,"Cuban H-Bomb" by American media in the 1950s, 'cause Chelo Alonso was Cuba's answer to Marilyn Monroe. Simply a force to be reckoned with, she exploded onto the international movie scene in the 1950s as both a dancer, instantly drawing comparisons to … | Continue reading
I've been digging through my fair share of New York's archives while researching Don't be a Tourist in New York and fell upon the photographs of a woman who, almost 100 years ago exactly, was doing the very same thing as I: seeking out the city's local and off-beat gems.Oh ho, le … | Continue reading
The one charm about the past, said Oscar Wilde, is just that: it's the past. But clearly, he never met Tony Garofalo. For over half a century, Tony has been behind the wheel, or swivel chair, rather, of the little Brooklyn Barber Shop that could...Quietly sandwiched between a del … | Continue reading
It's finally happening. A sleeping ghost station in Paris' revered 6eme arrondissement; just a few steps from iconic French cafés and the world's first luxury department store; a forgotten metro stop is finally going to be transformed, slated to become the city's hottest new unde … | Continue reading
This is not Photoshop. I repeat, this is not Photohop. Ever heard of "duplitecture"? It's the term that's been coined to describe replica architecture which has been popping up all over China since the 1990s (and let's not forget Las Vegas either), where iconic landmarks and enti … | Continue reading
It's a day like any other in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Yiddish-painted school buses go to-and-from, and women tighten the tichels around their heads; every man is silhouetted by a pair of perfectly curled sideburns, and the local grocer has a two-for-one deal on blintzes. Tel-Aviv … | Continue reading
You might have seen photographs around on the web of this giant hole that's so big it can be seen from space (and very likely takes you straight to the devil's basement). But have you ever wondered what actually exists around a godforsaken place like this? What's daily life like? … | Continue reading
Grace Slick is the the psychedelic queen who didn’t give a f**k– literally, she was the first to say the word on American television when she sang it in a song with her rock band, Jefferson Airplane. She was Janis Joplin's drinking buddy, a talented songwriter with a wicked sense … | Continue reading
Spring cleaning came early for French cinema icon Catherine Deneuve, who says she's just got no more room in her closet in Normandy (relatable!), so she's auctioning off her perfectly Parisian, Yves Saint Laurent wardrobe. Now for fashion lovers, this is the Holy Grail of hauls. … | Continue reading
We've taken a bath in front of the Eiffel Tower, in the middle of a desert, and even seen a bath tub on wheels. But for all our apparent interest in unconventional bathing, we'd never heard about Louis XIV's luxurious perfume bath. In a ritual so over the top–even for the French … | Continue reading
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven had a life as rich as her name was long. She became the belle of New York's bohemian scene in the early 1900s, donning feather crowns and bras made of tomato cans, making incredible art and befriending cutting-edge Dadaists like Man Ray and M … | Continue reading
He was the man with the thriftiest of Midas touches, and the only decorator who could spend $999 at a 99-cent store thanks to one mantra, seek "beauty, not luxury." Tony Duquette was a Renaissance man of film, theatre, interior and jewellery design in Hollywood– if you name it, h … | Continue reading
Imagine wrapping up all of Las Vegas in a neon-lit bow, and tossing it onto 29 square kilometres of land overlooking the South China Sea. Stir in a few Komodo Dragons and European-inspired skyscrapers, and you've got Macau, the gambling capital of the world across the way from Ho … | Continue reading
This is embarrassing to admit now, but when we first saw Suri Bieler pop her head out from behind a doorway as we called out “anybody here?” in the entryway of a 95,000 sq. foot warehouse in Queens, we assumed she might be an office assistant; maybe a weekend volunteer. Because t … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I fell in love with a movie called Shirkers. It felt like discovering a lost Wes Anderson movie. It felt like watching all the things I'd ever set out to portray here on Messy Nessy Chic– secret childhood drama, unappreciated beauty, deeply personal nostalgia, co … | Continue reading
Welcome to Mouseland, an adventurously cosy town where frogs take tea on lily-pads, mice set sail on miniature sailboats, and there are zero effs to give about anything in the real world that's larger than a peanut. It's the brainchild of Portland, Oregon-based author Maggie Rudy … | Continue reading
They've been increasingly antagonised over the last century, reduced to nothing more than a plague upon Midtown Manhattan, Trafalgar Square, Notre Dame (we could keep going). But today at MessyNessy, your internet watering hole for misfits and chic oddities, we'd like to show you … | Continue reading
One of my all-time favourite photographs of "vieux Paris" is this curious snap of a gentlemen emerging from the metro in 1935 wearing a set of mechanical wings. I decided to do a little digging behind the photograph and found that our winged-gentleman was on his way to the Lépine … | Continue reading
In 2018, MessyNessyChic became a tale of two cities. We'll always have Paris, but now we have New York too. In preparation for Don't Be a Tourist in New York, book number 2 (touching down in 2019), this year our rabbit hole led us across the pond in search of a sleepless city's … | Continue reading
Ever heard of mer-culture? The mythical creature of duality; the mermaid; has spawned a very real subculture, whose devoted members abide by daily social media hashtags such as #MermaidMonday or #MermaidLife and when things get tough, don fabric or silicone tails to swim around i … | Continue reading
Bartow-Pell mansion is the last of her kind. Tucked down a narrow drive in the far reaches of Pelham Bay in the Bronx, the 348-year-old estate was once one of many retreats built for affluents New Yorkers to hang up their top hats, and relax in Downtown Abbey-level splendour. As … | Continue reading
When it comes to celebrating New Year’s Eve, I’m usually torn between staying in with friends and a bottle of wine and, oh, I don’t know -- jumping on tables at one of Hemingway’s favourite bars? Ordering cocktails by a pirate ship? Sounds about accurate. You see, when it comes t … | Continue reading