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Category / People / Icons / Muses

Catherine Deneuve Wants to Sell You Her Parisian Wardrobe

Spring cleaning came early for French cinema icon Catherine Deneuve, who says she’s just got no more room in her closet in Normandy (relatable!), so she’s auctioning off her perfectly Parisian, Yves Saint Laurent wardrobe. Now for fashion lovers, this is the Holy Grail of hauls. But even if you don’t care about clothes, you…

The Most Exclusive US College that You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

What if I told you there was an elite college as exclusive as Harvard and as remote as the North Pole? That it consistently tops Harvard’s yield rate and evades suspicions of being a cult, that it requires its students to engage in 20 hours of manual labor per week and doesn’t let them leave…

The Jim Morrison Ghost Hangouts of LA

The year was 1969 and The Doors were gearing up for the release of their fifth album, Morrison Hotel. Driving around Los Angeles in a VW van, as only Jim Morrison would, the band and their photographer were location scouting for the album’s cover shoot when they came upon the Morrison Hotel at 1246 South Hope Street…

A Tale of Two Cities & Beyond with MessyNessyChic in 2018

In 2018, MessyNessyChic became a tale of two cities. We’ll always have Paris, but now we have New York too. In preparation for Don’t Be a Tourist in New York, book number 2 (touching down in 2019), this year our rabbit hole led us across the pond in search of a sleepless city’s secrets. Armed with a…

The Beatle that Got Fired

If you’re not a mega Beatles fan, or particularly well-versed in early Beatles history, that handsome chap on the drums there in a line up of teenage Greasers, might not look so familiar. That’s Pete Best, the original drummer for the iconic band, who was sacked under the direction of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison in 1962…

Meet the Oldest Elevator Operator in Los Angeles

Ruben Pardo operates one of the last manual elevators in Los Angeles and he’s been in his job that dates to the late 19th century for 40 years, nearly half his life. Six days a week, eleven hours each weekday, nine hours each Saturday, Pardo welcomes patrons to 5514 Wilshire Blvd in Downtown, never failing to brighten…

The Bohemian King of 1920s Paris You’ve Never Heard Of

The life of Tsuguharu Foujita reads like a long lost Wes Anderson movie — and looks like one, too. The expat artist arrived in Paris from Japan in the 1920s, and with his prim bowl cut, button-ups, tiny spectacles (and curious passion for cats), his eccentricity made him the crème de la crème of the Montparnasse bohemians. Let us retrace…

You May Be Cool but You’ll never be Cordell Jackson “the Rockin’ Granny” Cool

Somewhere in between Willie Nelson and Jimi Hendrix was Cordell Jackson, an American musician thought to be the first woman to produce, engineer, arrange and promote music on her own rock and roll music label. She was making music reminiscent of the Velvet Underground before the world was even introduced to rock & roll. The Mississippi-born, ballgown-wearing guitarist played with…

One Artist, 146 Faces

She’s the woman of a 146 faces (our ballpark guess), as well as the stylist, makeup artist, art director, model, and, above all, photographer behind their creation. For today’s art students, Cindy Sherman is a postmodern prophet of the über meta in photography, a woman who toyed with the concept of selfies and identity long before…

For Sale: The Lost Island Kingdom of a 1920s Bad Girl

“I ran a country”, boasted the tattooed, cigar-smoking, openly gay It-girl of the 1920s, whose life reads like an unwritten book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She built her own private island kingdom, was hailed the “fastest woman on water” as a champion motorboat racer and had her suits made on Saville Row. But Marion Barbara ‘Joe‘ Carstairs said herself, she…

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