What do you mean you’ve never heard of the lost civilization of Great Tartaria? It’s only one of the weirdest architectural conspiracy theories going. It seems there has been a monumental c...
Before there were fast-casual restaurants, before there was intermittent fasting, before there were meal-replacement shakes, before it all–there was lunch. And before there were Stanley cups,...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/03/14/a-comforting-snackable-history-of-the-lunchbox/
Picture this: you, an ambitious, career-driven woman wanting to conquer the Big Apple but struggling to find a place to stay. Lodging costs are likely your top concern. Once upon a time not lon...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/03/14/check-into-the-bygone-era-of-single-ladies-hotels/
For hundreds of years, the term “computer” was a job title for a human before machines took over the job, and in the late 19th century, computers weren’t just human, they were mostly wome...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2021/11/02/human-computer-the-forgotten-womens-profession/
I was walking along the Seine this weekend, slowing my pace for the lonely bouquinistes (the open-air booksellers that have squatted the quays of the river since the 18th century), when a dog-e...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2021/02/16/a-forgotten-ode-to-the-little-paris-shopfront/
Years before the Paris Métro opened, there was another subterranean transport system rattling away beneath the city streets. Instead of messages floating around in the internet ether of apps a...
Ah, la douce France! Cobblestone streets and cafés lost in time, quaint little ancient villages surrounded by vineyards, heart-achingly beautiful architecture and skylines, just like you’ve ...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2020/05/13/france-is-that-really-you/
The first time I saw this Cyd Charisse dancing was on a VHS copy of Singing in the Rain that I’d been gleefully gifted by my parents. With a total of just seven minutes airtime and not a sing...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/03/06/her-legs-shouldve-been-registered-as-deadly-weapons/
Their’s is a love of strange and beautiful proportion. The kind measured in porcelain, peanut-sized dolls, and antiqued oysters as big as your face. “It’s hard to imagine a time when we�...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/09/12/digging-for-treasure-and-love-in-new-york-city/
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...
A few years ago, a worldly friend who’s always in the know posted something to her Facebook wall that went something like this: Mudlarking on the Thames is the best way to spend a Sunday morn...
If you were living in Paris during the years that followed World War II and liked to party, you’d better have known Boris Vian. In 1950, he wrote the original guidebook to bohemian Paris a...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/12/20/i-wish-i-couldve-partied-with-the-prince-of-saint-germain/
It’s almost easy today, a century later, to laugh about the questionable medical inventions of yesteryear. But another hundred years from now, will people be laughing at the harmful product...
There was a time when these floating hotels that have rested on the lakes of Kashmir since the 1800s, were host to movie stars, artists, writers, famous musicians and wealthy western travellers...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/27/the-forgotten-houseboat-hotels-of-kashmir/
”If you were operating at the top echelon of the record business, you had to have the Starship,” music photographer Neal Preston told the New York Times in 2003, who held a boarding pass fo...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/07/10/im-with-the-band-on-their-private-jet/
The weekend is fast approaching, we’re looking forward to letting our hair down, maybe go dancing, listen to some music and have a glass or two. In early 20th century Harlem, New York, these ...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/03/15/you-are-invited-to-a-harlem-rent-party-circa-1944/