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Category / People / Icons / Muses

The Overlooked Occult Movie Legend who holds Hollywood’s Darkest Secrets

As an artist and an outsider, Kenneth Anger was the West Coast’s answer to Andy Warhol – a California boy who hosted rituals for the Church of Satan in his San Francisco mansion, and introduced the Rolling Stones to the occult; a man who found a muse in Mick Jagger, but a bigger one in…

Our Date with Diane Pernet, the Internet’s First High Priestess of Fashion

Crowned as the “original fashion blogger” by the New York Times, Diane Pernet has long been a one of a kind, spellbinding presence in the industry. She has filled so many roles – designer, filmmaker, curator, journalist and influencer (in the truest sense of the word) – that it’s impossible to reduce her work to…

How Black Cowboys Built the American West: A Living History

You may hear it, before you see it. The gentle trotting of hooves backdropped by the sounds of New York City’s JFK Expressway. Even locals do a double take when they cross paths with a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. When they ride, they tell the true story of the Wild, Wild West:…

Harlem’s Forgotten Fight to Save Africa’s Last Uncolonised Nation from Mussolini

Harlem, New York, the summer of 1935. Years before the United States or even Allied Europe has entered World War II. Large crowds of African Americans are gathering around a registration desk, volunteering to take on a fascist Italian dictator who is soon to become Hitler’s fiercest collaborator. No doubt, Black Americans have enough battles…

Like Dalí, She Should Have Been a Household Name for Surrealist Art

She became famous overnight with a strange furry teacup that mesmerised the art world in a way that no woman had done before. In a time before shock-seeking art became the norm, Meret Oppenheim was a pioneer; a force of nature who had all the Surrealists of Paris speaking her name, even though she didn’t…

The Dandy Suit that America Banned and Caused a Riot

You know the zoot suit. It’s the suit that bad guys are usually wearing in comical mid-century gangster movies, but there’s much more to this story than a stereotype. In the 1940s and 50s, zoot suits were worn by Mexican-American hipsters who embraced the flamboyant oversized style of dress to express their desire for freedom from discrimination and racism as an underclass. The zoot suiters became a…

The Secret Life of a Bond Girl

Guest article by Jamie Quiroz Ah, the Bond Girl. She purrs when she speaks, and always in an accent of indeterminate origin. She jets between the world’s most photogenic locales and underground bunkers. And she occasionally double-crosses lovers, because she can. Ursula Andress of Dr. No with Ian Fleming in Jamaica, 1962 When James Bond…

Vintage Muse du Jour: Princess Elizabeth of Toro

Today, we’re formally inviting you to shift your gaze to a lesser-known royal, deserving of her own spotlight: Elizabeth of Toro, the Ugandan Princess, lawyer, actor, top model, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the US, Germany and the Vatican in the 1960s. Her life reads like a trophy wall, and that’s only half…

In Defence of Clutter: The American Castle of a Renaissance Hoarder

Forget the great and gaudy Hearst Castle – why don’t they talk about Fonthill Castle? Now that’s a house worth seeing. Some might call him America’s first hoarder, but for any aspiring collector or lover of eclectic arts, Pennsylvania’s most underrated treasure is an astonishing visual treat at every turn, telling the story of a…

Our Zoom Date with Britain’s First Woman to Explore the World (Alone) by Motorbike

In the summer of 1982, a 23-year-old Elspeth Beard set off on her motorbike, and didn’t return home until she’d travelled the entire globe – a remarkable feat for any person, but particularly as a solo female biker nearly 40 years ago, making her one of the first women to ride around the world alone…

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