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Category / Art & Design Awesomeness

The 27 Inch Dolls that Saved Fashion in Post-War Paris

Even Hitler couldn’t rob Paris of its style. In 1945, the end of the war was in sight, the French capital had already been liberated of the Nazi occupation and it was time for Paris to relaunch its fashion industry. There was just one problem– the industry couldn’t afford enough fabric to actually create new fashion.…

Your Summer Photo Goals, as Demonstrated by the 1920s Morris Mermaids

It all started with this those three girls on a rock in 1922, putting my beach snaps to shame. Why is it, that with all the technology we have at our disposal to document every moment of our holidays, most of our summer photos end up looking so, well … uncreative? Photography of the 1920s…

The Ocean is Full of Wonders We Barely Understand. Sponges are one of them.

Did you know that a glass sponge could live as long as 15,000 years? They could probably live up to 40,000 years if changing sea levels weren’t a factor, and are thought by many to have the longest life span of any animal on Earth, in fact, sponges are probably the closest to what the…

Name that Aesthetic: The Romance and Ruins of Lost Civilizations

If it took you this long to identify one of the most epic genres of art history, welcome to the club. We must have skipped class that day. The aesthetic: a lost civilization – its crumbling and vaguely familiar architectural forms dramatically lit by a sunset backdrop, and in the foreground, a congregation of folks…

Lake Maggiore’s Treasure Island of Marionettes

On the serene waters of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, nestled among the Borromean Islands, lies Isola Bella, a place where history, art, and nature converge. While the island is renowned for its opulent Baroque palace and terraced gardens – including six incredible shell-encrusted grottos – there’s a lesser-known treasure within the walls of Casa…

Never Again Would There Be a Toga Party Like the Lost 1920s Delphic Festival

Every summer we run into the same problem: too many amazing festivals, too little time. Then we caught wind of the long lost Delphic Festivals, which makes every concert we’ve ever been to pale in comparison to its over-the-top, 1920s interpretation of Greek merrymaking. Think Coachella, but on steroids… The Delphic festival was so lavish…

Reviving the Abandoned ‘Life of Pi’ Art Deco Pool in Paris

If you ever got around to watching Life of Pi you might recall the hero of the film, a young Indian boy living in French colonial India, was ironically named ‘Piscine Molitor Patel’, after a historic 1920s Art Deco swimming pool (piscine) right here in Paris … At the start of the film, our lead character “Pi”, short…

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 Ghost of Francesca Woodman

In the decades since she jumped from a lower Manhattan high rise window at the age of 22, Francesca Woodman’s work has been rediscovered, revered and taught as gospel to photography students and has taken on a mythical cult status. Critics are forever tempted to use the circumstances of her death in 1981 as a…

The Marvelous Madness of Aloïse

Aloïse Corbaz lived a life outside the margins. Institutionalised, alone, and without any training, her deeply individual artworks were both a product of and a comment on her struggles with mental illness. Within the walls of a Swiss asylum in early 20th century, Corbaz was extremely prolific. She used unconventional materials like toothpaste, flower petals,…

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