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Category / Time travel

The Real Ice Queens: Women Who Conquered the Cold Wearing Corsets

Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world’s harshest environments at a time when wearing trousers was still a serious…

A Forgotten Ode to the Little Paris Shopfront

I was walking along the Seine this weekend, slowing my pace for the lonely bouquinistes (the open-air booksellers that have squatted the quays of the river since the 18th century), when a dog-eared paperback caught my eye. Inside, it was filled with the most delightful illustrations of French boutiques from the 1920s; each storefront’s name inspired…

France, Is That Really You?

Ah, la douce France! Cobblestone streets and cafés lost in time, quaint little ancient villages surrounded by vineyards, heart-achingly beautiful architecture and skylines, just like you’ve seen it in the movies. Right? Well sure, but that’s only half of the story. Sometimes, France can look like the Eastern Bloc. Sometimes, it can look like the…

You Are Invited to a Harlem Rent Party Circa 1944

The weekend is fast approaching, we’re looking forward to letting our hair down, maybe go dancing, listen to some music and have a glass or two. In early 20th century Harlem, New York, these cards would have been your ticket to a good time. They advertise what was known as “Harlem rent parties”, a social phenomenon…

The Forgotten Houseboat Hotels of Kashmir

There was a time when these floating hotels that have rested on the lakes of Kashmir since the 1800s, were host to movie stars, artists, writers, famous musicians and wealthy western travellers searching for inspiration and tranquility. Lou Reed left a letter in the guestbook after his stay of one of the houseboats called Buckingham Palace,…

I’m with the Band (and their Private Jet)

”If you were operating at the top echelon of the record business, you had to have the Starship,” music photographer Neal Preston told the New York Times in 2003, who held a boarding pass for perhaps the most legendary and rock’n’roll private plane there ever was. Led Zeppelin Welcome aboard the Starship I. And yes,…

Radioactive Jockstraps and other Lethal Cures to Improve ones Sex Life

It’s almost easy today, a century later, to laugh about the questionable medical inventions of yesteryear. But another hundred years from now, will people be laughing at the harmful products you and I use today? Here on MessyNessyChic, we’ve become quite familiar with the generation that brushed its teeth with radioactive toothpaste and that fell for the radioactive quackery…

Tracing the Real Betty Boop back to a Notorious Bootlegger’s Club in 1920s Harlem

The 1920’s in Paris may have been roaring, but over in Harlem, they were stomping. New York’s playground was not short of an underground boozer, but there was one place in particular that dominated the scene; The Cotton Club. Patron Saint of jazz, notorious bootlegging and the home of the original Black Betty Boop. It…

A Gourmet Dinner on the London Underground

The average commuting Londoner spends up to 75 minutes a day on the Tube. Convincing one to get back on the Underground for dinner would probably seem like a terrible idea, but we’re not talking about a late night bacon butty and a bag of crisps to chomp on the last train home. No, we’re…

Chasing Ghosts in an East London Time Capsule

I gave three taps to the door with the ominous Egyptian door knob and timidly stepped inside number 18 Folgate Street in Spitalfields, London. Here, you can smell the past. You can see the dust that time has gathered, it bathes in the sunlight on the stairway. You can hear the age in the floorboards creaking above. The…

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