10 Fabulous Mad Men Props Auctioned Straight Off the Set

When your favourite series ends, typically the denial kicks in first, followed by several other stages of grief and withdrawal. But I’ve came across something that might be able to help victims suffering from television show withdrawal to deal with their nostalgia. Enter Screenbid, an online auction house, but not just any auction house– Hollywood’s auction house.…

Vintage Italian Scooter Sale of the Century

In the 1960s, the scooter became as much a fashion statement as humble transport. Vespa and Lambretta were the Coco-cola and Pepsi of the Mediterranean and you couldn’t be a fan of both. They had their own magazines, clubs and mod gangs across the continent. Then there was the Moto Guzzi and the futurist Maico Mobil,…

A Brief Compendium of Crazy Campers

By land or by sea, as big as a suburban house or as small as a tiki hut, nothing beats the charm of a kitschy caravan. We’ve whittled down a fresh compendium of our favourites, and if there’s one trend we’ve noticed amongst the winning lot, it’s that they bring the vacation to you. A…

These 1950s Jersey Shore Motels Sure Do Look Lonely in the Off Season

It never really occurred to me to visit the Jersey Shore, not until I saw it in the dead of winter, through the lens of American photographer Tyler Haughey. His serene series Ebb Tide makes me want to check into a room at one of the lonely mid-century motels, stay awhile in limbo, maybe write a short…

This Hermès Collection circa 1952 Needs a Comeback

Paris fashion week has kicked off over here and the style world is abuzz with what trends we’ll be wearing two seasons from now. So while they’re worrying about all that, trust Messy Nessy to still be looking backwards more than half a century for wardrobe inspiration. Take this 1952 fashion shoot I dug up…

That Time Mickey Mouse Was a Drug Dealer

In the 1950s, non-medical use of stimulant and sedative drugs was widely accepted and promoted in the mainstream media– so widely in fact that they even made it into a children’s Walt Disney 1951 comic book starring Mickey Mouse as a speed dealer who just loves his own product. In ‘Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man’,…

They Just don’t Make Vacations like they Used To

This is just one of those posts that started with a single photograph which gave me such nostalgia for an era I’ve never actually lived through, that I proceeded to compile my own imaginary photo album of the perfect 1950s vacation– all shot in 35mm kodachrome of course. It was this tiny vacation cottage that…

The 1950s All-Girl Hot Rod Gang

When we think of women in the 1950s, we tend to picture some kind of Stepford housewife or a glamorous Marilyn Monroe type. Rarely does a character like bad girl Betty Rizzo come to mind and you’d be hard pressed to find a female Hollywood equivalent of James Dean’s “Rebel without a Cause”. Today, I think I found the real…

The Forgotten 1950s Girl Gang

You might have heard of the Teddy Boys, a 1950s rebel youth subculture in Britain characterized by an unlikely style of dress inspired by Edwardian dandies fused with American rock’n roll. They formed gangs from East London to North Kensington and became high profile rebels in the media. But an important sub-subculture of the Teddy…

The Girl with the Impossible Waist

If you look up “hourglass figure” in the dictionary, Betty Brosmer’s picture should probably be next to it (if you Google it, she’s right there next to Kim Kardashian). Meet the highest paid pin-up girl of the 1950s, considered by many as the first true supermodel, Betty appeared in thousands of magazine including LIFE, Time, Fortune,…