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Category / How to start a subculture

A Compendium of Abandoned Greenhouses

Today I opened my computer and typed in my chosen search words of the day: “abandoned greenhouse“. Little did I know how many photographs I was about to scroll through. So many, too many! Why is that? Surely we still all eat greens and enjoy decorating our houses with them. Why have so many of these…

A Compendium of Native American Tipi Decoration circa 1900

I found an online treasure chest of gas lantern slides today in Yale’s digital rare book library today. There are thousands of hand-coloured slides of the Blackfoot community in northwestern Montana at the turn of the 19th century and reflect the photographer’s particular interest in the unique decorative and artistic styles of the Native American…

Legendary Nights with the Bright Young Things

The generation that came of age in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu did a lot more than just bob their hair and drink all the time. Well, they did do those things too, but let’s take a closer look at those party animals of the roaring 20s a century…

The Enduring Urban Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

Imagine literally stumbling across a colorful tile in the road with some version of the bizarre inscription “Toynbee idea in movie 2001 resurrect dead on planet Jupiter.” This seemingly incomprehensible mambo-jumbo has flummoxed lovers of urban legends for decades, since they first started appearing in the late 1980s in Philadelphia, spreading to other North American…

This Forgotten 1980s Style Movement Explains A Lot About Fashion Today

When we think of the fashion industry’s most influential movers & shakers and icon-makers of the last 50 years, familiar names like Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, Grace Coddington or Patricia Field (Sex & the City) come to mind. But there’s another name that got left down the back of fashion history’s sofa – Buffalo –…

In Japan, “Biker Chick” Fashion Breaks All the Rules

The many style subcultures of post-war and modern Japan are rooted in rejection; a succession of generations refusing to traditional parental values. Each one has formed its own unique uniform of rebellion, but some have taken it to further extremes than others, riding dangerously on the fringes of society… Anarchic, angry and restless, Japanese rebel…

Dressing the Woman in Gold: The Unknown Bohemian Designer behind the Paintings

You know a Gustav Klimt painting when you see one. His gold leaf Japanese-influenced portraits of women, one of the most famous of which was the subject of a major Hollywood film (Woman in Gold), dressed in vibrant, multi-colored and almost psychedelic prints, saw him become one of the most prominent painters of his era.…

The Disappearing Membership Cafés of Provence

The village of Gordes in Provence is one of the most beautiful & charming in a part of France that’s teeming with small towns that are … well, beautiful and charming. Perched high on the slopes of the Monts de Vaucluse, Gordes is a treasure trove of narrow, winding cobbled streets, crammed with old homes…

The Alluring Art of Fake Food in Japan

They say we first eat with our eyes, and no one seems to understand this better than the Japanese restaurant industry. From a pot of thick gravy mid-pour over a perfectly cooked steak to an ice cream sundae with everything on it– you name it, they’ll make a plastic replica for it. Sampuru, derived from the English word…

How French Fashion Emerged even More Decadently from the Guillotine

Those of us who paid any attention in history class can probably recount a few key details and players of the French Revolution – there was Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI (AKA Louis the Last) and their posse at Versailles who were eating too much cake; the revolutionaries who kicked things off by storming the Bastille…

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