Preserved Moments of Historical, Indisputable Black Style

I haven’t done one of these style compendiums in a while, so this is long overdue. And this is also for all those internet retrospectives on vintage style that don’t include a single Black face. It was a hard task narrowing down my favourites from thousands of found snapshots floating around out there on the world…

She Lives at The Last Stop to The North Pole

For the adventurous of spirit, and those who yearn to pack a bag and disappear to somewhere as remote as possible, arguably nowhere quite captures the imagination as Svalbard. The far flung Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ice lies just six hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. It may be a place where…

Madame Mori, Haute Couture’s Real Madame Butterfly

European fashion designers have been inspired by Japan since it open its borders for trade in 1853. But while the art coming out of Japan was often appreciated and admired, the asian artists themselves have not always been welcomed with such open arms. One example of this admiration of Japanese aesthetics without a true understanding…

Muse du Jour: Lady Miss Kier

Armed with a pair of hot pants and a Cheshire Cat grin, Miss Lady Kier became the lighting rod of ’80s and ’90s electro-pop. As the front woman for Deee-Lite, her intensity turned songs like “Groove Is in the Heart” into pure eardrum candy in the midst of a time when grunge was on the…

It Took an African Princess to become the First Black Flight Attendant, but Diversity in Aviation Has Yet to Take Flight

In HBO’s hit series, The Flight Attendant, actress Kaley Cuoco does a sterling job of portraying how many of us would typically draw a flight attendant if we were asked to. Slim build, check. Perfectly highlighted blonde hair swept immaculately into a chignon, check. Carefully applied makeup, check. Caucasian woman, check. As we catapult through…

EXTREME LIVING: Turning Caveman in America

Sometimes we just want to get away from it all; make the great escape and reconnect with ourselves rather than our Facebook friends. But how far would go to get away from it all? Could you really switch off from the world? One woman did. And she found a few people to follow her too….…

Living in the Village at the End of the World

Welcome to Niaqornat, Northwest Greenland. Population: 59. Dogs outnumber people in this surreal and remote settlement with no more than 15 houses in total. If the population falls below 50, government ministers have talked about stopping the supply ships that pass through every few weeks between May and December and relocating the people of Niaqornat. When…

The Stylehunters of Soviet Russia

In communist Russia of the 1950s, members of a provocative subculture put their own original twist on street style. Labeled “Stilyaga” or “Stilyagi” (plural) by disapproving outsiders – a name that literally translates to stylehunter – a group of dandy youngsters dressed up in colorful American-inspired get ups to meet on Leningrad and Moscow’s main…

Cape Town’s Lost District, through the Eyes of its Transgender Darling

Once upon a time, at the southernmost tip of Africa, nestled in a hollow between the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and slopes of Table Mountain lived an awesome bourgeoning community of thespians. District Six was home to bohemians, artists, merchants, preachers, students, business people, gangsters and everyone in between. Think New York’s Greenwich Village…

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The “Unknown” Photographer who Documented the Cool Kats of Mid-Century Mali

At a New York art exhibition in the early 90s, three black & white photographs hung on the white walls, credited to a photographer “Unknown“. The portraits of fashionably dressed people and families taken between 1940 and the early sixties were actually the work of a nationally renowned photographer in Mali. Outside of his country however, Seydou Keita…

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