I’m Vanessa Grall, though most people know me as Nessy, and yes I’m just a little bit messy. I’m a London-raised, Franco-American writer, storyteller, mother and the self-appointed “founder/janitor” of Messy Nessy’s Cabinet.
It all started in 2011 with this blog, which I started writing from my bedroom in Paris or the café downstairs. I spent years happily falling down the internet’s rabbit holes, discovering forgotten heroes and eccentrics, collecting curious places out and about, and seeking out lost crafts to add to my online wunderkrammer. As it turned out, quite a few folks on the web found my musings interesting too, and at one point we were getting more monthly readers than Vogue.com! So the blog became a bit of a cult destination online, which led me to an opportunity to write a book. I’m now the author of three best-selling guidebooks, the Don’t be a Tourist series, and once I’d got the hang of things, it made more sense to start my own little publishing arm for ongoing literary projects.
In 2024, I decided to bring the whole curious mess into the real world and opened Messy Nessy’s Cabinet in the Latin Quarter of Paris. I was really just looking for a new office but accidentally ended up with a shop within the medieval walls of an old painter’s studio down the street from my apartment. Having played ‘shopkeeper’ throughout my childhood, I couldn’t help myself, especially with such a charming space. Years of writing about unusual objects, forgotten places, people, and subcultures continue to guide my curation, and I’ll often print off stories from the blog to be presented beside the various oddities I’ve previously written about. The byline of my blog had always been “An Online Cabinet of Curiosities,” so the shop felt like a natural extension.
Of course, running it wouldn’t be possible without an incredible dream team…
It’s part shop, part Parisian secret hideaway where stories come to life — and, much like the blog itself, slightly difficult to explain but hopefully rather fun to get lost in. My ultimate goal for every customer that walks in, is that they catch themselves in a moment, and feel like they are living in their own movie or novel. So if you’re ever in Paris, come be the most curious cat you can be. Until then, I hope you enjoy where it all started, right here on the blog.
If you want to say hi or propose a hot air balloon ride around the world:
contact(at)messynessychic.com