James Maclaine has been working at the Natural History Museum in London since the late 90s. He pretty much had the whole place to himself during the lockdowns, caring for thousands of specimens including the museum’s mind-boggling collection of pickle…
Our passports have been gathering some dust since the start of this pandemic, so maybe it’s time we took a moment to find out more about them and consider just how they came to be so important in our lives.…
When you think of Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur, you might think of the impossibly intricate architecture, ancient folklore, explosions of colour and unstoppable energy; a welcome deluge of the senses. But there is one place that is…
We were supposed to be living on the moon by now – at least, that was our trajectory according to the 1960s. Rockets had landed man on the moon and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey glamorised high-definition visions of life in space.…
Let’s go back for a moment to the swinging sixties in London’s Notting Hill. Portobello Road is the main artery of the hippie movement, heaving with bohemians musicians and freethinking “freaks”, as they’re known to the establishment. Jimmy Hendrix hasn’t…
Millennials grew up with it on after-school shows like Saved by the Bell and Pee-wee’s Playhouse. “A shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price,” critics called it. The bizarre and brazen postmodernist movement was definitive of the 1980s and their jagged, candy-coloured designs were as divisive…
She became famous overnight with a strange furry teacup that mesmerised the art world in a way that no woman had done before. In a time before shock-seeking art became the norm, Meret Oppenheim was a pioneer; a force of…
Here at MessyNessyChic, we love digging up long lost illustrations of the past to inject some creativity into our day. From the forgotten artwork found in lost Art Nouveau and Art Deco magazines to the drawing boards of the Ballets…
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that time of year again; the days are getting shorter, the clocks have gone back, the rusty leaves are floating off the trees, everyone’s shoulders are moving ever so closer to their ears, and the heaters on the terraces have gone back to their reassuringly glowing red. We might […]
September, which Parisians call La Rentrée, is one of the best months of the year. It’s when Paris comes to life after the summer drought, everyone’s back from their holidays with a golden glow and eager to mingle. The same time, the sun is still shining, it’s still warm enough to wear your vacation clothes […]
