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Category / People / Icons / Muses

From Corsets to Culottes: The Women who Dared to Change Wimbledon

Wimbledon today is known for showcasing the tennis talents of both male and female competitors, but in the tournament’s earlier days, one does wonder how women were expected to make a decent serve dressed in full-length skirts, corsets, and fiddly blouses: the ‘tennis whites’ of the time. It took some real champions to make a…

Long-lost Erotica of a Pre-Freudian Sexologist

Forget Freud. Today, we’re snooping around the personal archives of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a 19th century psychoanalyst and sexologist extraordinaire who history has often been forgotten despite his groundbreaking research in sexual pathology. His chef d’oeuvre is undoubtedly Psychopathia Sexualis, the book that made jaws drop across Europe in 1886 and the first-ever scientific study on sexual…

Who was the LGBTQ Hero of Civil Rights Behind Martin Luther King?

The list of people who attended the March on Washington — Martin Luther King Jr., Josephine Baker, John Lewis and Harry Belafonte — it’s a who’s who of the activists, politicians and celebrities who defined the Civil Rights Movement. But Bayard Rustin, a trusted advisor and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr., who organised the…

Bridgerton’s Black Presence isn’t Total Fantasy, it’s Hidden History

There’s a reason why Google autofills questions about the authenticity of Black presence in 17th and 18th century Europe – lots of people are asking. The hit Netflix show Bridgerton is Shonda Rimes’ first historical drama, but anyone who enjoys the screenwriter’s work (be it Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and many more), knows that…

Who’s Afraid of Adolf Wölfli?

Some artists leave us tangled legacies– reputations tied up in creative theft, family feuds and unresolved estates. Others, like Adolf Wölfli, leave us a veritable Pandora’s Box for consideration. At a glance, Wölfli’s work oozes the sentiments of Psychedelic art; its kaleidoscopic swirls of colour look fresh off the Haight Ashbury, circa 1967. In truth,…

Fashion’s Forgotten Bébé

Fabulous, free and fashionable, France bloomed in the 1930s. The avant-garde arts flourished, Paris was at the centre of it all and her output was bountiful. The creative giants of the day, Picasso, Cocteau, Coco Chanel, May Ray, Beauvoir and Sartre, the Lost Generation and their cultural circle basked in a warm summer evening’s glow…

The Woman Who Opened the World’s First Museum in 500 BCE

The first-known public museum opened over 2,500 years ago – and it was curated by a woman. Her name was Ennigaldi-Nanna. She was a priestess and princess, the daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who was also an antiquarian and known as the first serious archaeologist in history. Encouraged by her…

The Princess Pretenders

The possible survival and escape of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, was one of most captivating and romantic mysteries of the 20th century. The youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, was assumed to have been tragically murdered along with her parents and siblings by communist revolutionaries in 1918, when they were lured…

Summer in the Seventies with Andy Warhol

This is your chance to relive the summer vacations of an icon– and hey, it’ll only cost you $85,000,000. Andy Warhol’s Montauk estate ↑, a 30-acre oceanfront compound with a historic equestrian farm, where the most famous faces of the 1970s went to escape, is now up for sale. But before you go checking your bank balance…

Backstage with the Real “Almost Famous” Queen of Groupies

If someone told you their earliest romantic encounters were with David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger, you’d either slap them or roll your eyes. Unless that someone was Bebe Buell, of course. In the 1970s, the American model just so happened to be in the right place, at the right time, well, countless times, solidifying…

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