15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000

Category / People / Icons / Muses

From Frida to Shakespeare, the Amazing Things They Did whilst “Social Distancing”

In around 1603, a poet had a decision to make. With a plague underway in England, he could choose to answer to fear, or answer to the muse. Luckily for us, the writer – one Mr. William Shakespeare – decided to put pen to paper (quill to parchment?) and turn out one of his greatest…

Legendary Paris Nightclub of the 80s Reopens as a Cultural Shrine to David Bowie

On a steamy summer night in 1981, it wasn’t unusual to find David Bowie surrounded by Paris’ premiere debs and drag queens, tossing around a blow-up ball in an underground discotheque pool, or Grace Jones singing “La Vie en Rose” on a Harley Davidson at clubs like Le Palace – the French capital’s answer to Studio…

The Forgotten Firsts: 10 Vintage Versions of Modern Technology

In this age of mobile, wireless, digital and whatchamacallit technology, nothing seems to surprise us nowadays. Unless they’re going to finally show us those flying cars we’ve been waiting for since The Jetsons aired on television, we’re hardly batting an eyelid at some of the latest gadgets. But if we take a look back, we might find some familiar but curious…

Inventing the Bra Was The Least Interesting Thing This Blue-Blooded Bohemian Did

Inventing the bra is a pretty big deal. For Caresse Crosby, this wasn’t her only or even most uplifting accomplishment. The bra was just the beginning. This wild woman lived an extraordinary life, in fact, multiple lives to accompany her multiple names. As well as being an inventor, she published and partied with the Lost…

The World Wasn’t Ready for Oscar Wilde’s Fearless Illustrator

Here at MessyNessyChic, we love digging up long lost illustrations of the past to inject some creativity into our day. From the forgotten artwork found in lost Art Nouveau and Art Deco magazines to the drawing boards of the Ballets Russes; Heath Robinson’s peculiar art of over-complicating things to Errol Le Cain’s fantasy illustrations or…

The Forgotten Bohemian Queen of the Paris Art World: Leonor Fini

Bohemian “It Girl” of Paris, master of surrealist disguise and generally a badass female libertine, Leonor Fini was one of the most photographed people of the 20th century. And yet barely anyone I ask knows her name, even here in Paris, where she once ruled the bohemian Parisian art world, considered one of the few women…

The Boy Robot of 1774

It’s hard to imagine that before the United States of America even became a country, a Swiss watchmaker had already created a machine with the capabilities of a modern programmable computer– in the form of a small boy. The 70cm-tall automaton known as “The Writer”, is an extraordinary but often forgotten anomaly of its age.…

The Cult British Brand of Diana’s Iconic 80s Look is Ready for a Comeback

A new wave of Diana fashion fever comes along now and again, reminding us of how iconic the late People’s Princess truly was, be it in leg warmers or the perfect little black dress. This time, that reminder comes courtesy of Netflix’s The Crown, whose fourth season is a gem for so many reasons, but…

She Was Surrealism’s Black Sheep

“Pure psychic automatism.” That was Ithell Colquhoun in a nutshell, according to fellow Surrealist André Breton. The flattery is a bit of a suprise, given that Breton – one of several founders of a movement that has made little room to uplift its women – was somewhat of a vocal hater of women in the…

You can now Rent Julia Child’s Provencale Kitchen as she Left It, via Airbnb

A copy of Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, dog-eared, heavily scribbled in with my mother’s notes and covered with her gravy stains, will one day be passed on to me as a family heirloom. I didn’t know it then, but my childhood in Provence probably wouldn’t have tasted the same if it wasn’t for Julia…

NEWER POSTS 1 … 39 40 41 … 83 OLDER POSTS