The World’s First Sex Therapist and his Temple of Hymen

Self-styled Scottish ‘doctor’ James Graham may not have been the original snake oil salesman but he wasn’t far from it. The ultimate eccentric showman who spotted innumerable untapped business opportunities in the sex industry, James Graham gleefully administered a cocktail of somewhat questionable, shall we say, ‘fertility treatments’ to his well-to-do aristocratic patients, who were…

Time Travel to a 1930s Dance School in Paris

“Forget your troubles and dance” were the wonderful lyrics once sang by Bob Marley and he wasn’t far wrong as we stepped into an old dance school that sits quietly at the bottom of a paved courtyard in Saint Germain. (7th arr) Not to be fooled though as the seemingly quiet exterior says nothing about…

Behind the Gates of Paris’ Most Secret Street

A microcosm of secrecy, high-society, and spookiness mingles behind a black gate, warning voie privée (private road) on Avenue Frochot in Pigalle. This dead-end street, inaccessible to the public, hides fairytale neo-Renaissance villas behind wisteria trees and rose bushes. Marked by an elaborate stained glass window of an old 1930s cabaret to the left of the entrance,…

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Vacation House Hunting in the South of France

It’s becoming an annual tradition to take a summer trip down south with my girlfriends and this year is no different. We’re six friends with a similar budget (around 65 euros a night per person), looking for somewhere charming for one week with a pool, a good kitchen for cooking and space to dance under…

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Mucha and his Muse (Pioneers of a little movement called Art Nouveau)

During the late winter of 1894, a struggling Czech artist was working in an illustrator workshop, correcting proofs for a friend. It was the holidays in Paris and most other artists were out of town. All of a sudden, a woman rushes into the workshop demanding a poster for a theatre production called Gismonda. The production is set…

The Long Forgotten Love Story of the Titanic’s Interracial Couple

We Know Jack and Rose but what about Joseph and Juliette? The Titanic was the greatest shipwreck of the 20th century and most of us grew up with the love story of the James Cameron film. He built one of the world’s most iconic affairs with fragments of real stories from the passengers on board,…

Drawing Boards for the Ballets Russes

Nineteenth century Russia was restless, and so was Léon Bakst. The young man belonged to a new generation of creatives, one ready to turn Realism on its head with one flick of a bejewelled, utterly fabulous wrist. Today, his name is “a byword for excitement, for colour and glamour” and a radical new approach to…

Travelling Modern Europe with a Victorian Railway Guidebook

Are you looking for a way to travel back in time? Well, we haven’t cracked the laws of physics yet, but we have the next best thing – a guidebook from another time. Move over Lonely Planet, Bradshaw’s was one of the original guides that inspired the British to travel the Continent for leisure. Bradshaw’s…

Mozart’s Sister, the Forgotten Prodigy

It can be difficult having a sibling who is a high achiever but imagine if that sibling was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child prodigy, composer, and multi-instrumentalist with an unquantifiable talent that would astound the world with his genius. By the time he died at 35, he had composed over 800 pieces of music and…

The Forgotten Charm of the Barbershop Occupation Mugs

Welcome to another show & tell of collector’s curiosity objects. This week: the barbershop occupation mug. Allow us to explain; in the 19th century, and into the 20th, barbershops were a central hub for the working class man. It was where they could gather, catch up on the local gossip, and maintain their appearance of…