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Category / Inspiration Vault

Vacationing with Wes Anderson

It’s been almost two years since our “Location Scouting with Anderson” post went nuts all over the internet, and with summer fast-approaching and travel on all our minds, I thought it might be time for a new round of Wes Anderson-worthy locations – the vacation edition. So let’s check in for the night with Hollywood’s…

In 19th Century Paris, She Held a Permit to Wear Pants

A cigarette-smoking, pants-wearing, animal-dissecting painter, Rosa Bonheur spent her life doing exactly as she pleased. 2022 marks the bicentenary of the birth an artist who opened countless doors for female creatives, both in her home country of France and abroad. Born in 1822 in Bordeaux, Rosa Bonheur was the daughter of Sophie Marquis, a piano…

Rosa Bonheur’s Chateau is a Time Capsule Waiting to be Discovered

Rosa Bonheur was one of the most popular artists of the 19th Century. Not only was her work being sold and seen around the world, songs were composed about her and dolls were made in her image. Today, some of Paris’ most thriving bars and nightclubs are named after her. But her artistic merit has…

Haute Couture? The Tudors Did it First

Just look at the details on that dress. Seriously, zoom in! Fashion trends have always been cyclical, and the latest inspiration may be coming from the ‘90s, the 1590s that is. The Tutor period marked not only a time of economic prosperity but also developments in the arts, notably in fashion and textiles. The French…

When in Rome, Discover Hollywood on the Tiber

Italian cinema is synonymous with hauntingly special silver screen moments, the stuff that flashbulb memories are made of. Who could possibly forget the larger than life screen goddess Anita Ekberg – all platinum locks, bare shoulders and curvaceous black dress in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita? Or the doe-eyed flamboyant gamine Audrey Hepburn on her…

The American Art Scene was a Man’s World, Until They Came Along

When Francoise Gilot split from Picasso, he prevented galleries from buying her work. Camille Claudel’s lover, Augustin Rodin, signed a number of her sculptures as his own, and after their romance ended badly, it’s rumored he told the Ministry of Fine Arts to stop commissioning her. If you walk through any museum, you’ll often see…

Here’s the American Dream looking pretty Hungover by the 1970s

I would have liked to see America during its in-between period– somewhere in the seventies when the whole “Stepford Wives” thing and censorship and social compliance was over with (more or less), but they hadn’t yet starting tearing down all those wonderful and whimsical buildings. Sure, they might have been looking a little sorry for…

The Story of an Expat Girl in 1960s Paris

“Nadja à Paris” is a short 13-minute film by a French New Wave director, Eric Rohmer, following a young overseas student as she wanders around Paris. Nadja talks us through her daily life on the Left Bank in the first half but later swaps the gentrified Saint-Germain des Près with it’s café intellectuals for Belleville,…

Run Your Own Vintage Bistro in the South of France this Summer

Nope, sorry, I refuse to stop imagining that I live in the past. This time – inside Grandmère Léone’s village bistrot in Provence. It’s about that time of year when Parisians start looking south to plan a summer escape from the city, and on my annual holiday house hunt, I stumbled upon this little gem,…

The Most Famous Street in Paris You’ve Never Heard Of

Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Rue de Rivoli, Avenue Montaigne, each year millions of tourists follow the tired and testing formula of ‘been there, done that, bought the Eiffel Tower keyring’, and often leave the city with an unfortunate case of ‘Paris Syndrome’. As you may already know, we are not tourists here. We choose the path…

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