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Category / People / Icons / Muses

The Belle Epoque Body-con Dress That Was Too Sexy for Paris

In the Spring of 1908, three women walked onto the Longchamp racecourse in Paris and jaws dropped. The elite society event was known for debuting the latest couture creations to the public, but no one had seen fashion quite like this before. Dressed in blue, white and havane brown creations, according to newspapers, spectators called the three…

The Man who Documented the First Americans

His lifework documenting the North American native was once hailed as “the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible.” Today I found his photographs deep in the Flickr’s archives. At the height of Edward Curtis’s career, he had one of the most powerful bankers of his era, J.P. Morgan, personally financing him.…

The Truth Behind the Pope’s Ruby Red Slippers

If the clothes make the man, then the shoes make the Pope – and more specifically, his ruby red shoes. The scarlet slippers have been reincarnated for thousands of years for his Holiness, and each pair has a story to tell in the history books as well as on-screen, from HBO’s TV show, “The Young…

Banner Ladies: The Human Billboards of Yesteryear

Whether you’ve traded your old sofa on Craigslist or advertised your business and its products to the world, we’ve all had to dabble in the art of promotion at one point or another. In my experience, creativity is key, and it doesn’t get much more creative than the advertising style of 19th century banner ladies,…

The Diva Who Grew Her Own Exotic Kingdom

“Don’t touch. And don’t eat what you touch unless you want to die” are the first words you’ll hear upon entering Lotusland, the exotic, 37-acre kingdom of plants tucked away in the quiet town of Montecito, California. Its roots run three owners and 135 years deep, but it’s the touch of its final, failed opera…

Ode to the Ladies Pant Suit of Zanzibar

When fashion has been borrowed from the past over and over again, it’s rare to find something that you haven’t seen before. I was browsing through snippets of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, and noticed that among the historic photographs captured throughout East Africa from the 1890s-1920s, there was one…

Unearthing a Seriously Awkward Interview with Nick Cave

In 1989, Nick Cave, arguably one of the greatest living lyricists, was passing through Paris with his band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The baritone singer-songwriter sat down with a French journalist for over 40 excruciatingly awkward minutes. You have Nick Cave in front of you and you start by asking four questions about…

Vintage Muse du Jour: Anna Karina

Anna Karina arrived in Paris at the age of seventeen from Denmark. She spoke no French and performed on the streets for money. One day, while sitting at the famous Café Deux Margots on the boulevard Saint-Germain, she was discovered by an advertising agent who asked her to do some photos. She would soon find…

The Andy Warhol of Japan you’ve probably Never Heard of

Tadanori Yokoo. “Who?“, hoots back my (usually) reliable, ask-me-anything-about-art source. It’s not a name that rolls off the tongue for many as easily as Andy Warhol, but much like the late American pop artist, Tadanori Yokoo holds nothing short of a rock-star’s status in his homeland of Japan. He too began attracting a cult following…

Vintage Muse du Jour: Rediscovering Chelo Alonso, Cuba’s Answer to Marilyn

She was billed as the human,”Cuban H-Bomb” by American media in the 1950s, ’cause Chelo Alonso was Cuba’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. Simply a force to be reckoned with, she exploded onto the international movie scene in the 1950s as both a dancer, instantly drawing comparisons to Josephine Baker, and as a starlet who carved…

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