California Dreaming in Thumbelina’s SoCal Mansion

There are architects and designers, and then there’s Chris Toledo. For the past two years, the miniatures artist and professional perfectionist has been creating the Spanish Revival home of our dreams, complete with glossy, red-tiled floors and Juliette balconies; vaulted ceilings, hand carved beams, and 1920s-inspired furnishings. He’s crowned it “Casa California,” and it’s the ultimate…

The Secret Rooftop Farms you can Visit above Parisian Department Stores

In the early hours of the morning at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, the elevator doors open on the ground floor and out march a team of country bumpkins lugging crates of plump tomatoes, strawberries, fresh herbs and edible floIMG_0438wers, through the perfumery section, past the gleaming cosmetic counters and out the front entrance. They’re met…

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

1. Declassified Photos of Atomic Tests in Colour Declassified photos from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Archived Images of Atomic tests by artists Greg Mac Gregor and Clay Lipsky. Taken at the Nevada test site in the 1950s, when the US army put mannequins within the radius of nuclear test explosions to see what would…

Our Top 5 Paris Obsessions for La Rentrée

Paris is back in full swing for la rentrée, the annual ritual of Frenchies returning from their god-given right to a long summer holiday and starting a fresh. And that goes for us too here at the MessyNessyChic HQ. This week we’ve been on the hunt for new hidden gems and stuff to wow and inspire us…

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That Rock and Roll Baptist Preacher Who Turned out to Be an Artistic Genius

They just don’t make ’em like the Reverend anymore. The Elvis-loving, banjo plucking, gecko-wearing Howard Finster was one of the 21st century’s most inimitable, yet misunderstood Outsider Artists— a mere novelty for art critics, who wrote him off as a mad preacher with a paintbrush, and a man to be avoided by prying neighbours in…

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The Marvellous Mod World of Sci-Fi Supermarionettes

The last place we’d ever think to look for design inspiration would be the bygone genre of television puppetry, but here we are, drooling over the unlikeliest jackpot for mid-century modern style. Enter “Supermarionation”, a world devised in the 1960s by British television producers, with the ability to be at once sightly creepy, yet enviously chic…

Florence Nightingale’s Rival was a Fearless Transgender Man the World Forgot

The secret life of Dr. James Miranda Barry would make one hell of a movie. This remarkable character would spend decades working as a pioneering military surgeon for the British Army, travelling the world, reforming entire healthcare systems and fighting the corner of society’s undesirables. In Africa, Barry performed one of the first successful C-sections…

Hiding Out in Paris’ Littlest-Known Medieval Tower

Hiding in plain sight, sandwiched amongst Haussmann buildings on the right bank, is one of Paris’ grandest but littlest-known surviving medieval towers– and former home of one of the city’s more villainous citizens, Jean the Fearless. The Tour de Jean Sans Peur has been lurching over the heart of the city since 1411, but it took even…

The UNESCO Treasure Made of Living Humans

Behold Catalonia’s best collective party trick: assembling hundreds of supple Spaniards into a giant tower, or castell, up to 10 stories high. And this isn’t just empty acrobatics. It’s a UNESCO sanctified treasure (even though it’s made out of humans) with a story that has both mirrored, and challenged, the nature of its country’s patrimony… We can…

In Other News, Turkmenistan’s Dictator Wants to Be a Superstar DJ

For the President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov it’s been a busy year. Aside from running Central Asia’s own hermit kingdom, which according to the Human Rights Watch, “remains one of the world’s most repressive countries”, he manages to find the time for some rather unconventional hobbies. Let’s meet Turkmenistan’s “multi-talented” dictator… How do you entertain a country that…