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Category / Inspiration Vault

The Last Japanese Mermaids

For nearly two thousand years, Japanese women living in coastal fishing villages made a remarkable livelihood hunting the ocean for oysters and abalone, a sea snail that produces pearls. They are known as Ama, and if you’ve dipped into Messy Nessy’s archives, you will have already met the few ladies still left in Japan that…

The Dapper Daredevil Who Documented America’s Skyline in the Making

Where do I start with this photograph? The dapper shoes? The Gene Kelly stance? The delicate ease with which he’s holding that enormous camera? Or the fact that all of this is happening at some unthinkable height above the streets of New York? This handsome fellow is American photographer, Charles C. Ebbets, the very same Charles C. Ebbets who captured one…

The Bittersweet Story of the World’s First Motel

It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an indispensable amenity to the roving motorist; the…

When Will Queer Bravery Become Part of the World War II Narrative?

When Willem Arondeus said, “Let it be known, homosexuals aren’t cowards’’, on the eve of his execution in 1943, he was speaking for himself and countless others who gave and risked their lives to end the tyranny and oppression that the LGBTQ community faced under Nazi rule. It is only in recent years that their…

Once upon a time in Detroit’s ‘Little Paris of the Midwest’

You shall go to the Ball! The Belle Époque was that party at the end of the 19th century when European influence, wealth, culture and glamour reigned supreme. All wanted to join the party, and Detroit, that French Trading post on the North American lakes, was up for it. Prosperous and progressive from its new…

Maud & the Cult of the Clitoris

Maud Allan– beauty of the Belle Epoque, concert pianist-turned actress, dancer and choreographer and … sex-crazed lesbian spy for German wartime conspirators? Suddenly, my morning research into an Edwardian postcard just got a lot more interesting… She was born in Maud Durrant in Canada in 1873 and moved to Germany at the age of 25 to study…

Is Anyone Looking for the Lost Art of Britain’s Founding Pop Artist?

I say “Pop Art”, you say Andy Warhol … or maybe Roy Lichtenstein. Pop is often seen as a quintessentially mid-century American (and male) movement, a reaction to overconsumption and popular images encapsulated by Warhol’s soup cans. But Pop Art actually dates back to artists working in 1950s London, one of whom was the co-founder…

Brushstrokes of Brilliance and Queerness: Unlocking the Leonardo da Vinci Code

While you’re almost certainly familiar with his unrivalled genius as a painter, inventor, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor or architect, there is a little-known aspect of Leonard da Vinci’s life rarely taken into consideration in the context of art history; one that could potentially paint the great master as an unrealised icon of LGBTQ history.…

The Biggest Band to Come Out of Germany’s Sin City? The Original Beatles

You might think John, Paul, George and Ringo made a name for themselves gigging around Liverpool. Well think again, on both counts. In 1960, John, Paul, George, Pete and Stuart cut their teeth in Hamburg, before they ever made it big at home. Pete and Stuart? Where was Ringo? What’s the deal with Germany? All…

Electric Jewellery and the Forgotten Genius who Lit Up Paris

Known as ‘The City of Light’ for nearly two centuries, Paris led the way during the Age of Enlightenment, and yet history has forgotten one of the most bizarre and beautiful uses of light ever witnessed by Parisian society: electric jewellery. During the Belle Epoque, the chicest Parisian parties were lit up with electrified fashion accessories…

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