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Category / Inspiration Vault

The Woman Who Opened the World’s First Museum in 500 BCE

The first-known public museum opened over 2,500 years ago – and it was curated by a woman. Her name was Ennigaldi-Nanna. She was a priestess and princess, the daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who was also an antiquarian and known as the first serious archaeologist in history. Encouraged by her…

The Fashion Anatomy of Spandau Ballet

The swashbuckling frilly shirts, waist-cinching belts, man brooches, contouring make-up, jodhpurs and jack boots – was Spandau Ballet the most underrated fashion statement of the 80s? Outside of Britain (and the 1980s) the obscurely-named band might stand in the shadows of their rivals Duran Duran, but here’s why Spandau Ballet deserves a far more significant…

The Princess Pretenders

The possible survival and escape of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, was one of most captivating and romantic mysteries of the 20th century. The youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, was assumed to have been tragically murdered along with her parents and siblings by communist revolutionaries in 1918, when they were lured…

Summer in the Seventies with Andy Warhol

This is your chance to relive the summer vacations of an icon– and hey, it’ll only cost you $85,000,000. Andy Warhol’s Montauk estate ↑, a 30-acre oceanfront compound with a historic equestrian farm, where the most famous faces of the 1970s went to escape, is now up for sale. But before you go checking your bank balance…

Backstage with the Real “Almost Famous” Queen of Groupies

If someone told you their earliest romantic encounters were with David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger, you’d either slap them or roll your eyes. Unless that someone was Bebe Buell, of course. In the 1970s, the American model just so happened to be in the right place, at the right time, well, countless times, solidifying…

She was Too Scandalous, Even for 1920s Berlin

Berlin is a city of ghosts and one of the most alluring phantoms is Anita Berber, the high priestess of debauchery; she of the kohl black eyes and flaming red hair and vermillion lips. Immortalised by Otto Dix’s paintbrush, this Weimar cabaret goddess challenged all the taboos with her performances and broke boundaries that would…

Wish You Were Here: Saugatuck Art Colony, 1949

I‘m currently yearning for the itching of grass on my bare legs, for that awful predicament of having nothing to do but lounge around in the sun all day until I think to myself: “maybe I could take up painting for the summer”. This photostory I found buried in the LIFE Archives, labelled “Saugatuck Art…

The Secret History of the Conversation Chair

It’s taken many names, shapes and forms over the centuries – the conversation chair, the courting bench, a tête-à-tête, a chaperone chair, the vis-à-vis, gossip chair or the indiscret. Considered the pinnacle of sophistication and style during the Gilded and Victorian age, if you were entertaining the fashionable elite, one simply wasn’t running a home…

Girl Crush du Jour: Vanessa Paradis

Perhaps it’s because we share the first name (yes, if you haven’t figured it out, Nessy is short for Vanessa), perhaps it’s because she’s a Parisian and I’m now attempting to call myself one or maybe it’s just because we both like Johnny Depp– whatever the reason, Vanessa Paradis is my girl crush du jour.…

The Circus Girls, 1949

There’s something about this photo story that I dug out of the LIFE archives that makes me want to pack up my website and join the circus. Shot by the acclaimed photographer Nina Leen in 1949, we find our sassy subculture of circus girls in Sarasota, Florida, dubbed “the home of the American circus”. You…

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