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Category / People / Icons / Muses

Meet the Belle of Provence

Jamie Beck went looking for inspiration and wound up moving to Provence, where she spends her time studying artwork, buying handfuls of fresh flowers and taking self-portraits. She is the ultimate belle of southern France– a New York ex-pat with a touch of tradition, femininity, tenderness, and an Instagram gallery that could compete with museums. Her…

6 Startling Things I Didn’t Know about Bettie Page

Last night, I watched Bettie Page Reveals All, a 2012 documentary about her life history, with much of it narrated by Ms. Page herself and that wonderfully thick Southern accent of hers. Now here is the part where I admit that I ‘ve never really paid much attention to Bettie Page as a cultural icon before; always just putting her in that category…

Instagram’s Most Adventurous Naked Hippie

I think this is the shot that got me hooked on the Magdalena experience. Yup. It’s got everything I could ever need in an Instagram photo: abandoned building; check, ghost town; check, vintage typography, old neon sign, female body confidence and serious wanderlust vibes; check. It was taken in Rico, Colorado, a historic silver mining town in the Pioneer Mining District, which has…

The Girl behind the Wallpaper

You definitely know her face, but do you know her story, her name, or that she even did actually exist? Her repeated face is the muse behind one of the most recognisable prints in interior design; Piero Fornasetti’s eccentric plate series ‘Tema e Variazioni’, which over the years became a decorator’s go-to wallpaper or accessory for achieving a quirky and…

The Mad, Mad Love of Man Ray & Lee Miller

She was the model and artist turned war correspondent. He was one of Surrealism’s most iconic figures. Together, Lee Miller and Man Ray lived a fiery romance, set to the backdrop of 1930s Paris. So naturally, we’re keen to relive their story… Miller was discovered by Condé Montrose Naste (yes, that Condé Naste) at 19 in…

The Women Behind Gainsbourg

Bardot and Birkin: two of the most beautiful and iconic actresses that I have aspired to for their style and spirit ever since I first laid eyes on their photographs. When I visit the hairdresser for my seasonal make-over, I’ll either be clutching a tear-out of Brigitte Bardot’s romantic and tousled boudoir coif or Jane…

Summering with the Surrealists: Sea, Sex and Sun

Let us rewind to the sizzling summers of 1936 and ‘37 to holiday on the French Riviera with Pablo Picasso and his international ensemble of friends at the Hotel Vaste Horizon, a modest boarding house nestled in the old town of Mougins. The warren of intimate rooms and courtyards would be the summer home to…

How One Frenchman Became the World’s Most Beloved Lesbian Poet

We thought we’d heard it all when it came to imposters. Clearly, we hadn’t met Pierre Louÿs. The French writer had Europe’s literary scene eating out of the palm of his hand, and was decorated as a Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’honneur in his lifetime, two of his country’s highest honours, that would never have been awarded…

The Groundbreaking Kitsch Cowboy Art of George Quaintance

You just can’t outshine George Quaintance. Literally. Take one look at the glistening bodybuilders from his kitsch, homoerotic oeuvre, and you’d think you were looking some 1986 romance novels, but nope. These babies date back to the 1940s-50s, to an era before the queer advocacy following the AIDS crisis, and before the sexual revolution. And…

Mona (Marilyn) Monroe, the $10-an-Hour Pin-Up Model

In 1946, a nineteen year-old aspiring actress in Hollywood was in need of a job, and fast. Born Norma Jean Dougherty, destined to become Marilyn Monroe, but in between, for those not-so-squeaky-clean modelling jobs, she preferred to go by Mona– with a going rate of $10 an hour. It’s often thought that the first nude modelling Monroe did was…

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