Oh, just an Utterly Insane Ghost City of Fake French Chateaux

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 entire towns are constructed using lower-quality building materials to clone centuries…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCXXXVI)

1. The ‘Hippiedilly’ Squat on Hyde Park Corner in 1969 Found on Flashbak. 2. The British Library has a collection of over 60 million newspapers stored in an airtight, low-oxygen room The latest, state-of-the-art facility featuring robotic cranes to retrieve newspapers from shelving that are 20 metres (65 feet) high. The newspapers are stored…

The Legend of the Sun King’s Perfume Bath at Versailles

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 Sun King– Louis…

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A Little Lady with a Giant Prop House

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 there was no way…

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13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCXXXV)

1. Living in a old Sea Captain’s House Our favourite decorator, John Derian, lives in an 18th-century Provincetown home that once belonged to a sea captain. “ I renovated the plumbing and electric, but left the rest of the house how it was, even the peeling wallpaper. A year afterward, my brother visited and said, ‘Take your time…

The Movie of the Year Is a Stolen Cult Film That Almost Never Was

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, conspiracy, vulnerability, creativity– all perfectly wrapped up…

The Parisian Inventors

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 contest, an inventor’s competition founded…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCXXXIV)

1. An artist’s interpretation of how iconic faces would look if they fit 2018’s beauty standards By collage artist Mat Maitland. 2. A Hollywood Special Effects Artist turned Hyper-Realistic Sculptor You’ve seen his work in films like Planet of the Apes and the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, now discover the new personal work…

A Tale of Two Cities & Beyond with MessyNessyChic in 2018

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 secrets. Armed with a…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCXXXIII)

1. Inside a 1926 Rolls Royce Found on Mansions of the Gilded Age. 2. This Rare Midcentury Beauty for Sale Only seven of the fibreglass caravans – designed by industrial engineer Chuck Pelly in 1962 with an original price tag of $8,500 – were ever made and only two thought to still exist. Following its…