Messy Nessy Chic » Fashion for Dummies

Cast your eye over the creations of Jacques Griffe, and one can’t help but wonder why a designer so acutely gifted doesn’t also boast a couture legacy similar to that of many of his contemp...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/03/07/why-is-jacques-griffe-not-as-famous-as-dior/

Remember the supermodel-celebrities of the nineties, the ones who wouldn’t get out of bed for under $10 000 a day? Casting a glance a little further back into fashion history, there’s a ho...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/02/29/these-overlooked-fashion-icons-were-more-than-just-pretty-faces/

Rest assured, the roots of fashion have never really been straight. Weaving in and out of contemporary culture, lesbians have been creating sapphic waves of influence on the mainstream style c...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/02/02/a-sapphic-sartorial-study-of-lady-troubridge/

To us comfy dressers of today the idea of an itchy, restrictive gadget – fashionable or not – impeding our head movement isn’t the most appealing of accessories. But the ruff, a cumbersom...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/01/18/a-brief-compendium-of-ruffs-historys-most-inconvenient-fashion-fad/

To be one of “Antonio’s Girls”, as they were known, meant you were going places. You had “it”. Grace Jones, Jerry Hall, Tina Chow, Pate Cleveland and Jessica Lange are names that are ...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2023/11/16/the-puerto-rican-playboy-who-ruled-fashion-in-the-decades-of-decadence/

Got milk? Pour yourself a glass and gulp down some little-known history about the household staple. In the early decades of the 20th century, milk was commonly used to make many plastic orname...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2023/09/22/the-lost-art-and-innovation-of-milk-plastic/

Unfathomably whacky fashions have seen the light over the ages. Take the perilous hobble skirt of the early 1910s that deliberately impeded its wearer’s ability to walk, or the gentleman’s ...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2023/09/22/struck-with-style-lightning-rod-fashion-of-the-18th-century/

Fabulous, free and fashionable, France bloomed in the 1930s. The avant-garde arts flourished, Paris was at the centre of it all and her output was bountiful. The creative giants of the day, Pic...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2023/06/15/fashions-forgotten-bebe/

You’re looking at a very rare portrait from 1650 depicting a Black woman and a White woman, both appearing to hold equal status, some 183 years before the abolition of slavery act. Curiously,...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2022/04/15/the-secret-code-of-beauty-spots/

These are a few of my favourite things about a 1970s French musical called “Donkey Skin”: A giant cat throne, a surreal banquet with candy-coloured flora, a snow globe grave, talking roses ...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2021/03/23/refine-your-mood-board-with-this-1970s-french-fairytale/

Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females wh...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/02/27/the-real-ice-queens-women-who-the-conquered-the-cold-wearing-corsets/

Even Hitler couldn’t rob Paris of its style. In 1945, the end of the war was in sight, the French capital had already been liberated of the Nazi occupation and it was time for Paris to relau...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/10/31/the-27-inch-dolls-that-saved-post-war-paris-as-the-fashion-capital/

Wimbledon today is known for showcasing the tennis talents of both male and female competitors, but in the tournament’s earlier days, one does wonder how women were expected to make a decent ...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/07/07/from-corsets-to-culottes-the-women-who-dared-to-change-wimbledon/

In 2023, the global shampoo market had an estimated value of $32 billion. But deep in the mountains of southern China’s Guangxi province, the women of Huangluo Village won’t be contributing...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/11/05/the-chinese-village-of-long-haired-rapunzels/

78% of 18 year old women are unhappy with their bodies and this is probably a large part of the reason why… YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Starved of a Realistic Female Body Image? Flesh & Curves this ...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2012/03/14/talk-to-your-daughters-before-the-beauty-industry-does/

Hi there. Don’t be shy, yes that’s a boobie and a curvy waist you just saw, we’re going to be looking at a lot of those in a moment. For a few minutes today, I thought I’d give you a li...

https://www.messynessychic.com/2011/12/29/starved-of-a-realistic-female-body-image-flesh-curves-this-way-2/