How to Introduce Agnès Varda to the Next Generation

Agnès Varda throughout her career was seen as belonging to the older generation. A pioneering photographer, writer, filmmaker and artist, at the beginning of her career and at barely 30 years old, she became known as the “grandmother of the New Wave.” But Varda was the cool kind of grandmother, the one with a thousand…

The Manifesto Dedicated to all those B*tches Out There

“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 Chester plays, which portrayed biblical scenes,…

Hollywood’s own Dark Angel was an Indian Actress Playing the Biggest Role of her Life

Merle Oberon, the Hollywood actress who to this day remains the only Asian actress to be nominated for a Best Actress award at the Oscars, was born in Bombay, India in 1911. Merle however, would have you believe that she hailed from Tasmania, Australia and was born to Caucasian parents. The family, she claimed, moved…

There’s a Lost Palace that Rivalled Versailles, Buried under Brussels

Coudenberg Palace was once the envy of all of Europe. It had everything you could want in an opulent royal residence; a monstrous banqueting hall that dazzled guests with its sublime décor, sumptuous apartments filled with works by important artists like Rubens, and extensive grounds and gardens where ladies and gentleman of the court could…

Fashion History’s Most Flustering Flex: The Codpiece

You only need to have a gander at the armour that Henry VIII used to wear to see how proud he was of his nether regions. Indeed, during his reign, one of the most important fashion items in a gentleman’s ensemble was a designated pouch that protruded from the crotch of men’s trousers, enclosing the genital area. This…

Postcards from the Last Windmill in Paris

In the dappled light coming through the trees, a jovial bohemian crowd have gathered to dance and dally at the Moulin de la Galette, one of the many windmills that originally stood at the northern tip of Paris. By the time Renoir’s famous painting had captured the scene in 1876, the unlikely venue was already…

The Parisian Poison Panic and Versailles’ Secret Witch Hunt

This is a different kind of story about Versailles; one that they only dared whisper about in the palace’s gilded halls. It’s the little-known story of a witch hunt that unfolded in secrecy within the French royal court, eclipsed in history by a more famous witch hunt that took place a decade later, thousands of…

Why Are Women Still Fighting for their Chance to Compete in the Tour de France?

It’s 1st July 1903, we’re in Montgeron, a southeastern suburb of Paris positioned in front of the Reveil Matin café on the rue Jean-Jaurès. Excitement is in the air as 60 hopeful male cyclists line up at the starting line, eager to test their stamina in a new competition called the Tour de France. The…

It Took an African Princess to become the First Black Flight Attendant, but Diversity in Aviation Has Yet to Take Flight

In HBO’s hit series, The Flight Attendant, actress Kaley Cuoco does a sterling job of portraying how many of us would typically draw a flight attendant if we were asked to. Slim build, check. Perfectly highlighted blonde hair swept immaculately into a chignon, check. Carefully applied makeup, check. Caucasian woman, check. As we catapult through…

Little Tuscany in the Heart of Paris

As 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, crowned with an Italian grotto and flanked by ivy drapes, is an impossibly romantic place alluding…