Let’s take a cruise through history (see what I did there) aboard the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise, a German passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line launched in 1900 and credited with having been the first purpose-built cruise ship. It only spent six years in service before it … | Continue reading
1. Inside Denmark’s secret nuclear bunker, now open to the public A top-secret atomic bunker has opened to the public in Denmark. Built to withstand a nuclear attack, it’s now an astonishing subterranean museum that sheds light on Cold War paranoia. 2. | Continue reading
There was a time when a visit to the powder room involved more than a quick tinkle and a dab of powder on the nose. Taking its name from the noble courts of Europe, the powder room was a designated space, in aristocratic houses, for the powdering of wigs that were a little worse … | Continue reading
When a lithe ‘It-Girl’ Coco Chanel stepped off a yacht in Cannes with an accidental suntan in 1923, many would argue it was the moment that sunbathing became a cultural phenomenon. White folks everywhere were intrigued by this rebellious new suntanned look sported by the Parisian … | Continue reading
We Know Jack and Rose but what about Joseph and Juliette? The Titanic was the greatest shipwreck of the 20th century and most of us grew up with the love story of the James Cameron film. He built one of the world’s most iconic affairs with fragments of real stories from the passe … | Continue reading
There are some things we’ve lost that I’ll never understand. Midcentury automobile design comes to mind, as well as piano bars & cocktail lounges on our airplanes, hand-painted typography and artisanal signs lining our high streets, and now, I’ll add rooftop theatres to my list. … | Continue reading
1. The “Titanic of the Mountains”, an old train station abandoned for 50 years is now a Luxury Hotel Canfranc International railway station was often referred to around the time of its opening as the “Titanic of the Mountains”, in part due to its large size, having been at one ti … | Continue reading
Are you looking for a way to travel back in time? Well, we haven’t cracked the laws of physics yet, but we have the next best thing – a guidebook from another time. Move over Lonely Planet, Bradshaw’s was one of the original guides that inspired the British to travel the Continen … | Continue reading
Nineteenth century Russia was restless, and so was Léon Bakst. The young man belonged to a new generation of creatives, one ready to turn Realism on its head with one flick of a bejewelled, utterly fabulous wrist. Today, his name is “a byword for excitement, for colour and glamou … | Continue reading
It is a well known fact that an underground tunnel connects 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s residence in London, with number 12 (we’re not sure why number 11 was left out) but it is surprising just how many residences, both old and new, are harbouring hidden passa … | Continue reading
Before the flapper came about as the embodiment of 1920s femininity, women in the late 1800s and early 1900s had a different role model from which to take cues – the Gibson Girl. She was the feminine ideal of this era and socially, the Gibson Girl had a very defined role. She was … | Continue reading
1. An ancient Algerian ruin whose history and origins have been almost completely lost over time In the middle of an ocean of dunes in the Sahara, The Ksar Draa in Timimoun, Algeria. Find several theories of these mysterious ruins here. 2. | Continue reading
When you’re looking to escape the tedium of modern and mainstream tourism, sometimes the only way is up. Today, our armchair travels will take us to some of the most remote (and highest) villages in the world, from middle America to roof of Egypt. But of course, we’re not just go … | Continue reading
Welcome to another show & tell of collector’s curiosity objects. This week: the barbershop occupation mug. Allow us to explain; in the 19th century, and into the 20th, barbershops were a central hub for the working class man. | Continue reading
It can be difficult having a sibling who is a high achiever but imagine if that sibling was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child prodigy, composer, and multi-instrumentalist with an unquantifiable talent that would astound the world with his genius. By the time he died at 35, he ha … | Continue reading
Dreaming of getting lost down some pastorally perfect country roads? Much more than a route from A to B, these mysterious ancient pathways hold secrets of their own. To find out what they are, all you have to do is walk towards the light at the end of the lane. Our usual advice t … | Continue reading
1. This Abandoned Lighthouse on Sakhalin Island (Far East Russia) The Aniva Lighthouse on Google Maps. Photos by: Slava Stepanov. | Continue reading
I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, so if you’re reluctant to step inside the world of 19th century junkies, I suggest you close the door and choose something a little lighter and brighter from our menu. I’m not quite sure how I ended up here myself, stockpiling antiq … | Continue reading
What 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 iconic funnels … | Continue reading
When looking at abandoned places, I often think, ‘how sad’, and, ‘if only it could come back to life’. This place? Not so much. This is the secret Soviet city of Gudym, which once held enough nuclear weapons to wipe out half a continent. | Continue reading
Let’s pack our bags and plan a summer holiday on some beautiful island. But forget the palm trees; we’re heading up north to the land of Vikings and the country with the most islands in the world. That’s right, Sweden has more than 220,000 islands. Okay, so that number might be u … | Continue reading
1. Easter Bonnets Apparently they were a thing. More here. 2. | Continue reading
I’m in that mood again. Is there ever a bad time to go window shopping for French fairytale homes? The allure of quitting urban life, recruiting your best friends to go all in on the adventure and living out the rest of your days fixing up your French fortress with an endless sup … | Continue reading
Get your sea legs ready, we’re setting sail for the bygone days of wild seafaring in search of a little-known piece of nautical history: the castaway depot. Also known as castaway huts, castaway depots were small shelters strategically placed on isolated islands by governments or … | Continue reading
“We don’t embroider cushions here,” said the man considered as the most important architect of the modern age, during his first encounter with Charlotte Perriand. She wanted to work for Le Corbusier, a name synonymous with those dramatically new brutal concrete buildings, rejecti … | Continue reading
1. The Japanese Subculture Where People Wear Giant Cyclops Masks Introducing tanganmen, one of the more underground movements in Japanese style. Photographer Irwin Wong came across them on social media, and understandably thought they would make a worthy addition to his 2022 book … | Continue reading
We live in landscape narratives — places where stories are embedded in the land itself, entangled in the vegetation or built into the architecture. A winding road, a tower, a house under construction or falling apart — in all these we find stories at work. Gardens are perhaps the … | Continue reading
The Gibsons are my kind of family. Papa John Gibson, a local seaman from Penzance, took his first photograph of a shipwreck in 1869 and from then on, he and his family were determined to be first on the scene. His two sons, Alexander and Herbert perfected the art of photographing … | Continue reading
1. This was Casa Requena Located in the historic center of Mexico City, the interior of the house that belonged to the Requenas was a work of art: its eclectic and art nouveau style rooms were overflowing, imaginative, full of exuberance. However, like the life of Pedro Requena, … | Continue reading
From a distant galaxy, far, far away, Ziggy Stardust made his last public appearance in 1973 before David Bowie retired the glamrock persona and sent him packing for good. But the infamous last hurrah in London would also his first public collaboration with another equally unique … | 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 creative to know what they look like – if that’s what they were really looking for at all. The mir … | Continue reading
Sphinxes, scarabs and obelisks, oh my! Egyptomania quite literally indicates a madness for anything Egyptian; a phenomenon most of us tend to associate with the 1920s when archeologists cracked open King Tut’s tomb and unleashed a new wave of excitement that penetrated every face … | Continue reading
There’s something enchanting about coming across an old scrapbook; more than just a photo album, a lovingly put together book of ephemera can be a unique window into a life lived elsewhere. We previously found a marvellous one once at the Brooklyn Flea Market, made by an aspiring … | Continue reading
1. A Twitter thread of Messy offices to make you feel better The thread was instigated with a photo of the late Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development, Jean Piaget. (We’re trying to figure out if that’s an old timey toaster he’s pointing to). Other Twitter use … | Continue reading
We forget that once upon a time, social status had a lot to do with the common houseplant. We’re talking about the parlour palm, one of the most significant decorative features in a Victorian home, which referred to any number of varieties of palms, ferns, and other hardy perenni … | Continue reading
Those precious moments of alone time in the bathroom are priceless to many of us, and yet strangely enough, it was one of the few luxuries the King and Queen of England could not afford. Until as recently as the 20th century, the British monarchy appointed what was known as the “ … | Continue reading
In an emergency call on September 8th, 1985, Carl Andre told the 911 responder that his wife Ana Mendieta had “somehow gone out the window” of their 34th floor apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. Mendieta fell to her death that day, landing on the roof a deli. She was … | Continue reading
From the 1930s to the 1950s, these charming little I.D. badges were rolled out across America as a “fail-safe” homeland security measure in a crackdown on the threat of industrial espionage. Each badge gives clues to a story, whether you’re trying to piece together the identity o … | Continue reading
1. Hegra, an Ancient City in Saudi Arabia Untouched for Millennia The archaeological site, now open to tourists, offers clues about the mysterious empire that built it and its more famous sister city of Petra in Jordan. Previously, foreign tourists had to obtain special permissio … | Continue reading
This one goes out to Generation Y. Part of being a collector means taking a bit of risk and making a prediction that something might appreciate in value. The key is often to find something that’s cheap and rare, and buying it before everyone else discovers they want it too. I was … | Continue reading
“Whom callest thou ‘slut’, scabbed bitch,” was supposedly the first recorded reference of anyone ever getting called a bitch, it was of course not the last. It might have been uttered in Middle English, but the message was clear, it was an insult. We’re in the 1400s and the Chest … | Continue reading
“The chief obstacle to a woman’s success is that she can never have a wife.” Anna Lea Merritt (19th Century Artist), Lipincott’s Magazine. Virginia Woolf may have nailed the formula to becoming an independent, creative woman in her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, but groups of ar … | Continue reading
I was researching old Parisian advertisements from the 19th century (as you do) when I came across this one for a palatial Turkish bath house near the opera house. Behind its vaulted arches, magnificent mosaics were lit by stars of coloured glass and according to a 19th century ‘ … | Continue reading
At first glance, the surreal plot of what has been called one of the worst films ever made seems like a reiteration of harmful tropes: a transgender woman pretends to be her own widow to con her rich uncle out of his money and ultimately use her power to destroy gender norms – in … | Continue reading
“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts,” once said Ray Eames, the artist, designer, and wife of Charles Eames. The Eames partnership revolutionised our concept of modern furniture and quite literally shaped the way we live. Although their c … | Continue reading
It would take most people a moment to figure out that the images above aren’t charcoal sketches by Degas or some other Impressionist artist. These are in fact photographs from the late 19th century, artfully manipulated to look like paintings. They were made at a time when it had … | Continue reading
Walk with us, as we follow ancient trails where the living once carried the dead. We’ll be traversing Europe’s rural landscapes via a network of so-called “corpse roads”, occasionally marked with crucifixes and low stone benches, cutting across windswept hills, overgrown pastures … | Continue reading
It should come as no surprise that some of the world’s most fascinating collections are found in churches. But today we’re not talking about Florence’s abundance of Renaissance murals or the Baroque masterpieces in Rome. Arguably the most intriguing religious collections are the … | Continue reading