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Category / Nostalgia

There’s a Lost Palace that Rivalled Versailles, Buried under Brussels

Coudenberg Palace was once the envy of all of Europe. It had everything you could want in an opulent royal residence; a monstrous banqueting hall that dazzled guests with its sublime décor, sumptuous apartments filled with works by important artists like Rubens, and extensive grounds and gardens where ladies and gentleman of the court could…

The Japanese Fishing Village That Vanished From Los Angeles

Imagine being given 48 hours to pack up and leave for an unknown destination. What would you bring with you? What would you do with your house, your business, all your clothing and furniture? On February 25th, 1942, some 3,000 Japanese-American residents on Terminal Island in Los Angeles county were faced with this unimaginable situation.…

Renoir’s Art Model Was the Greatest Painter You Never Heard Of

Name a post-Impressionist woman painter and most people would draw a blank. Or they would cast their mind back to Mary Cassat or Berthe Morisot and their pastel domestic scenes. Few know of Suzanne Valadon, who shocked the turn-of-the-century art world with her boldly outlined nudes. A circus performer, single teenage mother, and art model…

When Montmartre was Harlem-on-the-Seine

After the Great War, a new kind of music began to waft through the winding streets of lower Montmartre. Unrestrained, audacious, with a potent syncopated rhythm unlike anything ever heard in Europe. It was the music of Black Americans who had started to move into the neighborhood. For a brief time, far away from Jim…

The Nautch Girls: India’s Forgotten Dancers

You arrive at the gardens after nightfall with the full moon casting a cool, pale glow over the muggy evening. Two dozen torch bearers stand by to light your way, and as you approach the crowd, you sense the anxious anticipation of the delights to come. Soon the musicians strike up their instruments, and a…

The Lost World Of Wonderful Wooden Bowling Alleys

When the grand mansions of America’s Gilded Age were being built, no expense was spared; from the finest stones for the exterior to decorating every nook and cranny inside with extraordinary, lavish detail. The same luxury was applied to the entertainment on offer; after all, being a member of America’s wealthiest families meant that a…

Buried Secrets of Montauk’s Menacing Military Camp that Inspired “Stranger Things”

There are places in New York and the northeastern coast of America, where a pleasurable trip to the seaside can take a turn for the peculiar. You may be wandering along a bucolic beach only to stumble across the abandoned ruins of brutalist concrete structures lying half buried in the sand, evoking the iconic end…

Don’t Forget the Fearless Father of Unisex Clothing

From Harry Styles to Diane Keaton, household names of every generation continue to embrace and explore fashion that goes beyond the traditional gender binary. And as brands take note of an increasingly mainstream social shift, from luxury to fast fashion, the 2020s are on well course to being remembered as the decade that unisex fashion…

The Underrated Charms of Ice Fishing

When winter arrives and those icy chills replace the Autumn thrills, most of us tend to curl up beside the fire with a good book, grab a hot chocolate or watch a classic movie. If you live in the northern middle states of the US however, you bundle up in your warmest clothes, pull on your hat, mittens,…

When Victorians Embraced Same Sex Marriage for Women Over A Century Ago

It’s not widely known that same-sex unions were recognised in Ancient Greece and Rome, Mesopotamia and some regions of China, ranging from informal relationships to highly ritualised unions. Perhaps even more surprising, is that that those notoriously tight-lipped Victorians were open to it as well. There was a loophole in the 19th and early 20th century, when…

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