A Feast with the Gypsies of 1960s Paris

One of the most common misconceptions about Roma Gypsies today is that they come from Romania in Eastern Europe, but the Roma people and the nation of Romania are not at all related. Historically, the Roma people originate from the Punjab region of Northern India. When they were displaced from their homeland a thousand years…

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Oh, Just a New York Hippie Castle with Elephants

We thought we’d seen it all when it comes to unusual and unique hotels. Then, we found Wing’s Castle of New York. This storybook cottage had us rubbing our eyes– are those elephants? The castle began, as so many magical things did, as a 1969 reverie… We did a bit of digging on Wing’s history and current state,…

Tokyo Is Having Way More Fun Than Us at Fashion

In Tokyo, there are no rules when it comes to street fashion. Current trends have little or no influence and you certainly don’t have to work in the fashion industry to throw down some serious looks. I stumbled upon the Tokyo Fashion Tumblr today, which has been faithfully documenting Japanese street style since 2010. From Lolita…

Race Movies and the Black-Owned Studios that Thrived Next to Hollywood

There was another Hollywood that thrived once upon a time. From the 1910s to the 1950s, an independent Black American film industry was in full swing, making movies specifically for an all-Black audience, with its own African American directors, stars and studios. The movies they produced, the first alternative American “indie” cinema, are known as…

Here are the 1960s Fashion Trends we’d like to Nominate for a Comeback

At MessyNessyChic, we spend a lot of time in the 1960s, revisiting rock & roll communes, getting to know forgotten muses and venturing out on hippie trail, but we thought it was about time we did a retrospective of style from our favourite decade. The good, the bad and the interesting… The Paper Dress The sixties played around…

Hiding Homosexuality on the Cover of America’s Magazines a Century Ago

One of the first things you’ll start to notice about Joe Christian Leyendecker’s work is that his women were never quite as good-looking as his men, who were devastatingly handsome. He gave us the elegance of Gatsby 20 years before F. Scott Fitzgerald had even invented him. Take a moment to observe the dashing man on the stairs,…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCXXXIX)

1. The ridiculously dangerous sport of “Auto Polo” Automobile polo or Auto polo was a motorsport invented in the United States with rules and equipment similar to equestrian polo but using automobiles instead of horses. The “sport” which was popularised by an automobile dealer as a publicity stunt for Ford cars. …A tally of the damages…

Our Glorious, Gaudy Dinner Date at America’s Kitschiest Restaurant

Free for a dinner date tonight? We’ll cosy up under the palm trees, beneath the eyes of Grecian statues and the bubbling of waterfalls; we’ll stroll amongst Medici-inspired gardens and socialise with 200-and-something other guests who’ve ordered a Delmonico steak, or triple-decker monte cristo sammie. Because this is the grande dame of fabulously kitsch American…

Can We Talk About Dali’s Amazing Sell-Out Era?

“Then the Alka Seltzer shoots into the stomach!” are words you might not expect to hear from Salvador Dali from the comfort of your own living room. Yet, for anyone with a television in the 1960s and ’70s, the Surrealist legend also became a staple of the small screen, sharing his abounding, rehearsed excitement for…

Dream Catching at the Ends of the Earth in the Name of Art

Some minds are cornucopias; sources of creative ephemera. Such is the case for artists and photographers Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, a dream team bringing fairytales to life for the new millennium. They agreed to open up the Pandora’s Box of their creative process to share how the heck their fantastical worlds manifest themselves, and show why…