Float Away with a Forgotten Futurist’s Vision of Paris

Paris was destined to be a city enjoyed from great heights; the Arc de Triomphe a mere pedestal for a mini city in the sky and the gothic bell towers of Notre Dame a convenient launching pad for fish-like dirigibles to whizz around town in. That is, according to fantastical world of Albert Robida, a…

Cruising the Past & Future of the Retro Shopping Mall

It’s a weird time to be a consumer. Emerging from lockdown, folks around the world are gauging the risks of doing something as seemingly simple as stepping outside, let alone step inside a shopping mall – an aspect of American culture in particular that is entering a new era. On the hand, we can look…

He Found an Entire House in his Attic

I’m not scared, you’re scared! We were casually scrolling through Reddit the other day when we stumbled upon the most interesting if not creepiest thing we’ve ever seen posted on the platform… A Redditor who goes by the username “Mr Griff” shared photographs over the weekend of a recent excursion up to his attic where…

Into the Woods with Green Thumbed Activist, Indy Srinath

Almost a decade ago, Indy Srinath made herself a pretty ambitious promise. “It was like having a sudden awakening,” she tells Messy Nessy Chic about her decision to learn the name of every single plant she discovered, “where you feel like you’ve been living with a crowd of people who serve you your entire life,…

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

1. Guy finds a box of 100-year-old Nudes in his wall “…searched the house more thoroughly and found a trove of century-old erotic photographs, about 120 in all. We’ve identified two studios involved in the making of these photos: The Aurora Studios in Boston, MA and Alta Studios in San Francisco, CA. One of the…

America’s Hidden “Mad Men” Age of Black Advertising

Style and smiles all-round, saturated to the max; sexy undertones complete with sexist overtones and carefree capitalism – those iconic mid-century advertisements weren’t just unique to the magazine pages of white America. In the 1950s and ’60s, the notorious advertisers of Madison Avenue, aka the real-life “Mad Men”, sought out African American dollars too. Unbeknownst…

Savour the Date with Post-Pandemic Weddings of the Roaring 20s

A century ago, the world was recovering from the deadliest pandemic in modern history. Post-Spanish Influenza and post-World War I, no other decade in history can match the change and innovation brought forth by the 1920s. Things were changing fast – new and impressive lines of communication were opening up, with new fangled inventions such…

Inside the Mystery of an Untranslatable 600 Year Old Book

It’s like Medieval Times, with a kiss of psychedelia. A book in which strange globules float freely, alien plants shimmy across the pages, and female figures slide into a pool of green plasma. Binding them all together? A beautiful, albeit entirely indecipherable script by an unknown author. The “Voynich Manuscript,” is an ancient codex that…

Oh, Just the World’s Tiniest (Hand-Knitted) Sweaters

One Size Fits None for Althea Crome, the fiber artist who has been knitting miniature – and micro-mini – sweaters fit for a size range that we’ll just call “ladybug (XS) to mouse (XL).” As if knitting a 5mm turtleneck wasn’t hard enough, Crome’s designs are often imbued with varied, intricate artistic symbols inspired by…

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

1. An Entire Old West Town for Sale in New Zealand A detailed replica of an 1860s Wyoming frontier town, set in the heart of a 900-acre ranch has gone up for sale with an asking price of $7.5 million. Found on Bloomberg. 2. French Revolutionary Frescoes Discovered behind the Walls of a Paris Apartment…