For most of 2018, it’s been all about New York City at Messy Nessy Chic, as we gear up for the release of our second book in 2019, Don’t be a Tourist in New York. So when it comes to making plans for New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple– we got this! Using our top secret compendium of … | Continue reading
The 1920’s in Paris may have been roaring, but over in Harlem, they were stomping. New York's playground was not short of an underground boozer, but there was one place in particular that dominated the scene; The Cotton Club. Patron Saint of jazz, notorious bootlegging and the ho … | Continue reading
First of all, you need to be prepared to accept, as have I, that your own home may never be as perfect or "Pinterest-Ready" as this dollhouse built for miniature people. Then you need to be okay with the fact, as am I, that you may be tempted to steal decorating ideas from said d … | Continue reading
Because why bake a gingerbread house this holiday season, when a real-life abandoned one can haunt your dreams? Let's head out to Hamburg, New Jersey, where a local landmark is in dire need of a little TLC from Hansel & Gretel. Since the late 1920s, the now-crumbling structure wa … | Continue reading
Every once in a while, the Internet gods deliver us a property listing that hits every MessyNessy sweet spot. Quaint antique architecture? Check. Unexpected links to remarkable figures and inventions throughout history? Double check. Make it a library, and you've dreamt up our pe … | Continue reading
Behind what might be the narrowest door in Paris, at the back of a peaceful courtyard, I can hear the faint sound of a radio crackling as I approach the end of a corridor, hoping I've found the atelier of Maïssa Toulet. I'd found a photograph of her work on Tumblr and tracked her … | Continue reading
It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an in … | Continue reading
History didn't know what to do with Fred G. Johnson. On the one hand, he was just another hard-working Chicago teen in the signage business, and far from a classically trained portrait artist. Yet, there weren't many in the sign painting game making banners for "Bearded Brenda" o … | Continue reading
What do Lady Gaga and Lenin have in common? They've both played the theremin– the world's first mass-produced electrical instrument, invented by the same guy who created a covert Soviet listening device that sat undetected for 7 years inside the American Embassy in Moscow (plante … | Continue reading
Maps and Miniatures — these are a few of my favourite things (along with Paris and all its secret places, of course). But you might be wondering what secrets I could possibly find at one of the most recognisable landmarks in Paris, Les Invalides? So big you can’t miss it, built f … | Continue reading
As it turns out, the French Riviera caters to more than a few of our favourite holiday past-times: channeling Brigitte Bardot, building sand castles at the beach and ... tracking down aliens? About an hour north of the seaside city of Nice, into the mountainous terrain where Prov … | Continue reading
You're probably familiar with the favourite Roman past time of nude public bathing, but did you know that it's an even bigger phenomenon in Japan? Getting hot and steamy is deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, and public baths are still as popular as ever. The archipelago, whic … | Continue reading
If someone told you their earliest romantic encounters were with David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger, you'd either slap them or roll your eyes. Unless that someone was Bebe Buell, of course. In the 1970s, the American model just so happened to be in the right place, at the righ … | Continue reading
The birth of the music video is often credited to MTV, and it was 1981 when the first 24-hour music channel launched on our screens with "Video Killed the Radio Star". Oh the irony, right? Wrong. Video and the radio star actually go way back. Get comfortable, because we're about … | Continue reading
“I spent some time as Peter Pan’s shadow” is the kind of sentence that’d only make sense here, at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park. This 143-year-old wooden chalet was plucked from Swedish soil, and rebuilt smack in the heart of Manhattan in 1877. Since then … | Continue reading
If there's one thing I'm almost certain about when it comes to Victorians–it's that they had a heck of a lot of time on their hands. Without Instagram to fill those empty moments, Pinterest to procrastinate through their evenings or Netflix to swallow up their weekends, Victorian … | Continue reading
There are moments in my endless hours of browsing the web, digging for my next rabbit hole, when I stop and find something a little bit magical– something that opens that door to Narnia that I'm forever searching for, if only for a few seconds. Miena's moving illustrations (liter … | Continue reading
To add to the mystery, no one is actually sure when they were built. Located at several sites scattered around central and Northern India, it's been estimated the colossal astronomy instruments were constructed as early as 1710. But is it just us, or do these structures look like … | Continue reading
Maybe it's because, in truth, they're completely unnecessary but so utterly gratifying when trimmed with precision. Maybe it's because they transport us to the fantasies of our childhood, both romantic and slightly eerie (we've all seen how things end for Jack Nicholson in The Sh … | Continue reading
Secreted away in the heart of Manhattan’s Chinatown is a small, peculiar street. Whilst most of the city is laid out in a uniform grid system, this tiny, one block long street is unusual in that it has a sharp, angled bend in the middle of it. On a map, it is marked down as Doyer … | Continue reading
1. Gustav Mesmer and his umbrella helicopterGustav Mesmer (1903–1994) was a German inventor of experimental human-powered flying machines, often referred to in the press as "the Icarus of Lautertal." He has been championed by curators as an outsider artist, while his theories abo … | Continue reading