Don’t be a Tourist in Paris, the Movie Trailer

For anyone out there who doesn’t do Facebook, Instagram or newsletters and just like to come straight to my little corner of the web for your goods, you might not have seen this: my first ever book “Don’t be a Tourist in Paris” comes with its very own movie trailer. Never hurts to be prepared for…

The Strangely Underrated Artistry of Japanese Playgrounds

I don’t know about you, but the playgrounds where I pottered around in my day, eating too much sand and earning my first set of stitches on the jungle gym, did not look like this. Surreal nocturnal scenes of colossal, if not slightly traumatising cement playground equipment in Japan, that looks better suited for a contemporary art sculpture…

Ghosts of Nigeria: A Colonialist’s Photo Album

I had a good dig through the British National Archives this morning and began fixating on the “Nigeria” album, containing over 900 photographs from the Colonial Office photographic collection. It’s an exhaustive album of portraits and documentation of the photographer’s tour through what was then Colonial Nigeria in the late 19th century. The photographs capture so…

10 Clues to Unlock Paris

You should have seen the MessyNessy office today, because boy, was it living up to its messy name (get a behind the scenes look here on Insta stories). It was pretty ironic since the goal was to shoot my new book, surrounded by ‘things organised neatly’. So that’s what you’re about to see: ten very tidy portraits of…

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

In celebration of the release of MessyNessyChic’s first book, “Don’t be a Tourist in Paris“, I’m dedicating today’s 13 Things to the city that inspired it all. 1. A French beekeeper makes Honey wine in the Paris catacombs Mead, sometimes known as honey wine, is a mix of water and honey that, like wine, must be…

Cobra Cocktails, a Mad Scientist and his Roadside Serpentarium

Nothing says American kitsch like a 35-foot giant pink cobra. I stumbled upon this old postcard in my morning rounds of obscure internetting and knew there had to be a story worth telling behind it. That’s how I met Bill Haast, the man who charmed both snakes and visitors at his Miami Serpentarium and lived to the…

Celebrity Icons and their Favourite Summer Book

So you might have heard I wrote a little book called “Don’t be a Tourist in Paris” and I was in need of some early feedback, so I sent it out to just a few of my close contacts. As you can see, it looks like they all really seem to be enjoying it! I think it’s going…

The Empresses’ Secret Cabinet of Erotic Curiosities

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia was so infamous for her sexual freedom that when she died from a stroke at the age of 67, there was even a rumour claiming she actually died while copulating with a horse. I learnt about Catherine the Great at school, about how she modernised Russia, pioneered women’s education, enlisted Voltaire…

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

1. Inside Salvador Dali’s Surrealist Funhouse from 1939 “Dream of Venus” was Dali’s pavilion for the World’s Fair to be held in Summer of 1939 in Flushing Meadow, Queens. As you entered the pavilion you had to pass between twin pillars that were fashioned in the image of female legs that were protruding from a…

If Alice in Wonderland had her own Accessories Line

I‘m not much of a fashion blogger, I mostly leave that to the experts in their field. But every once in a while, I do come across a company that seems so perfectly harmonious with everything we believe in here at Messy Nessy Chic, and I just need to play fashion blogger for a moment. As you’re…