A Compendium of Vintage Postcards from the Great American Road Trip

The annual weekends of sparklers, parades and sending your neighbours smoke signals is soon upon us, and there’s no other way I wish I could be spending the 4th of July than on the great American open road, visiting the weirdest and kitschiest roadside attractions America has to offer… However, since I’m a (half) American in…

World War II Love Letters

The other day from across the pond, a New Yorker got in touch with me to ask whether I might be interested in a scrapbook he found at a Brooklyn flea market, made by a young lady leaving New York in 1939 for California to become a theatre director. Of course I was interested, and of…

Interview with the Vintage Guru of Namibia

This is why I love the internet. Today I got to chat with Loux the Vintage Guru based in Namibia, Africa, whose Tumblr site I recently discovered and fell instantly under its spell. The budding fashion designer and all-round exquisitely-dressed dude is making waves with a collective of twenty-something like-minded style innovators to promote the…

The Old Butcher’s Bookshop, Paris

On the longest street in Paris, at the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens, sits a unique little bookshop that’s often overlooked. While the famous Shakespeare & Co is chock-full with tourists everyday, outside Le Pont Traversé at 62 Rue de Vaugirard, the lone passerby is occasionally browsing the bookstand at leisure. So I thought I’d…

The 1920s Speakeasy Club with a Treehouse in the Backyard

We’ve stumbled upon the backyard of a speakeasy club called the Krazy Kat Club in Washington DC, July 15, 1921. It looks like they might have decided to move their staff meeting outside to their treehouse in the heavy heat of July– and nobody is in the mood for business. Every workplace should have a backyard…

So This Is Where Johnny Depp Does His Shopping

If any of Johnny Depp’s characters went clothes shopping, whether it be the sea-faring Jack Sparrow, the cravat-wearing Mad Hatter, the 1930s bank-robbing John Dillinger, or Roux and his band of river gypsies from Chocolat, this would probably be the place you’d find them digging through the rails. And seeing as Johnny Depp’s personal style looks…

Why the Newspaper Kiosks in Paris are so Important

Paris’ 150 year-old newspaper kiosk could be considered one of the most “charming” little features of its urban landscape. A nostalgic reminder of simpler and more romantic times, largely unchanged over the years since they first appeared in 1857 during Baron Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Just like London’s iconic red telephone booth, the Parisian kiosk…

A Hidden Island Treasure of Lost Antique Machines

It’s a place you’ll only find if you’re searching for ghosts of the past. I saw it flash past the corner of my eye as we whizzed through the sleepy village streets of Gozo, the Maltese island south of Sicily, before siesta’s quietest hour. I hurled my head out of our battered 4×4 jeep window to catch a fleeting glimpse…

Old School Bikinis: A Brief Compendium of the Itsy Bitsy

There’s something about vintage bikinis, something about the way they looked tailor-made with soft cotton patterns not made in China, generously cut with so much extra puffy fabric, you could probably have stuffed a sandwich down the front of your pants for lunch at the beach. And now that swimwear season is nearly upon us, I’m finding it…

The Vault

How America Fell for Maude Fealy

Can you blame them? She’s the kind woman whose nearly 100-year-old snapshots still radiate charisma and mystique from one of the most magical eras in film history. She was a Southern Belle of showbiz stock, and she was just as convincing in the role of an 17th century French diva as she was crossdressing in the…

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