15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000

Category / Editor’s Picks

Inventing the “Stepford Wives” American Dream Town

The first thing to know when walking around Levittown, PA, is that it is very easy to get lost. The leafy winding streets often double back on themselves, and confusingly, the street names in the different parts of town not only all begin with the same letter, but have similar sounding, idyllic names; Shadetree Lane,…

Weekend at Wallis & Edward’s Secret French Cottage

For the man who gave up the throne of England to be with the women he loved, living in seclusion became a life sentence. Exiled from England to avoid stirring up trouble for the Royal Family, Edward and his American wife settled in Paris and lived in the beautiful Chateau Le Bois, which became better known…

Vintage Muse du Jour: The Queen of Mars

You know it was a good era for fashion and costume design when the Queen of Mars was the ultimate style inspiration. I’ve been down the rabbit hole again, digging through 1920s and 30s showbiz imagery, and I couldn’t help noticing how everyone looks like they’ve been raiding the Martian queen’s closet. Her outfits were…

Saving China’s Memories from the Trash, One Kodak at a Time

What do giant sharks, gymnastics, and a banana-eating competition have in common? They all inhabit the fantastic world of “Beijing Silvermine.” For almost a decade now, this has been the curious project of French photographer Thomas Sauvin, who has been on a tireless mission to rescue and revive the millions of 35 mm negatives floating…

America’s “Secret Sonic Weapon” Against Communism

This is the story of that time the United States decided to influence countries “at-risk” of falling to communism … by introducing them to jazz. In a Cold War “Jazz Ambassador” initiative, they sent famed artists such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Galespie, and Duke Ellington, among others, to share “their Western music” and to hopefully, introduce some American…

Stolen Beauty of the Chin Girls

The isolated mountains of Burma’s Chin state are home to a number of hill tribes that have been separated from modern world for centuries. Chin women used to follow the thousand-year-old tradition of tattooing their faces. The ritual, officially banned by the government in the 1960s, doesn’t attract modern Chin girls anymore. Soon the thousand-year-old…

A Brief Compendium of Vintage Interiors that Get the Party Started

It’s finally the weekend, maybe you’ve heard someone’s throwing a house party and with any luck, your host will have some interesting digs to poke around. Interior design probably has the power to make or break a house party, or at least it used to. Browsing through the kitschiest Tumblr I’ve found on the interweb in a while,…

The Marvellous Mod World of Sci-Fi Supermarionettes

The last place we’d ever think to look for design inspiration would be the bygone genre of television puppetry, but here we are, drooling over the unlikeliest jackpot for mid-century modern style. Enter “Supermarionation”, a world devised in the 1960s by British television producers, with the ability to be at once sightly creepy, yet enviously chic…

The Muslim WWII Heroine that Time Forgot

Not many can boast to have made it to the top of the Nazis’ “Most Wanted” list in Paris during World War II, and still fewer Allied radio operatives stayed at the top of that list for longer than a few weeks. Noor Inayat Khan exceeded these expectations, working fervently to bring freedom to Europe…

Meet the Other Legendary Female Aviator (who Could Drink Any Sailor Under the Table)

Amelia Earhart might be the first woman aviator that comes to mind, but she was only one of an incredible group of flying female record breakers during the golden age of aviation in the 1920s and 30s. The Ninety-Nines was founded in 1929, a group of female aviators named for the 99 charter members when there were…

NEWER POSTS 1 … 63 64 65 … 190 OLDER POSTS