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

1. This Fabulous Account of Colorised Historical Images All found on History Colored. 2. An Iridescent Pileus Cloud over China NASA’s astronomy photo of the day, found via Present & Correct. 3. This Incredible Private Canadian Island Home For Sale Table Rock Islands , Georgian Bay, Ontario listed for $2,650,000, found via this list of island…

The Ghost of Francesca Woodman

In the decades since she jumped from a lower Manhattan high rise window at the age of 22, Francesca Woodman’s work has been rediscovered, revered and taught as gospel to photography students and has taken on a mythical cult status. Critics are forever tempted to use the circumstances of her death in 1981 as a…

6 Ways to Introduce Joan Didion to the Next Generation

Is it just us, or has Joan Didion become the go-to heroine for millennial and even Gen Z “cool girls”? Move over Jane Birkin – by declaring allegiance to the late American writer on social media, Didion brings instant credibility and style to one’s online persona – even if one has never read The White…

When Dangerous Dancing Dandies were the Bad Boys of Paris

The Paris of the Belle Époque saw the emergence of a certain type of street outcasts; a subculture that combined killer style with the criminal underworld. They were known as, les Apaches. They lived in secret dens in the city outskirts, shunned the idea of honest labor and took their name from the allegedly savage native American…

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

1. Zorita, the 1940s “Half and Half” Snake-wielding Burlesque Dancer She was an American burlesque dancer. She was best known for a twenty-minute dance which she performed with two boa constrictors called ‘Elmer and Oscar’ Some of her other unique and subversive numbers: In another act, she emerges from a giant spiderweb dripping in rhinestones. Dark ‘spider’s hands’ slowly peel…

Paris’ Missing Palace and the Making of the Louvre

In many ways, the history of the Louvre is the history of France, from the era of monarchs and the temples they built to their power to the radical ambitions of the French Revolution and Paris Commune. While many of the millions of tourists now flocking back to Paris will gawk at the architecture of…

How Bugs Bunny Became a Queer Icon

Celebrities from Judy Garland to Madonna to Lady Gaga have been granted the title “gay icon,” but there’s one often-forgotten figure who deserves a spot on this list: Bugs Bunny. The Warner Bros. Cartoon character not only experimented with gender presentation but also married a man in at least three cartoons, in the 1950s. With…

Meet Alma Mahler: Composer, Lover, Muse, Sex Doll and Liar

Alma Mahler was no ordinary woman: She shared her first kiss with Gustav Klimt, kept diaries that offered an insight on fin de siècle Vienna the same way Anaïs Nin’s journals did for 1930s Paris with the same (if not more extreme) fabrication, and drove her ex-lover to such madness he commissioned a sex doll…

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

1. A Treehouse in Tuscia La Piantata, a B&B, found here. 2. Gucci arrives in Detroit Gucci has opened a permanent 3,500 sq ft store in a Renaissance Revival landmark in the downtown. The Italian heritage brand has been eying Detroit since 2019 when it launched its Gucci North America Changemaker’s programme to spotlight talent in the city.…

The Edwardian Style Spy Photographer

If you follow MessyNessyChic on Instagram, you’ll probably have stumbled upon a series I came to name as “Style Spy“, which to my bemusement, has probably become the most watched form of content on that social media platform, but more on that later. Today, I stumbled upon a kindred spirit of yore: Edward Linley Sambourne.…