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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Desirable Digs
January 10, 2019

Meet the Man Who Lived in a Jewellery Box

He was the man with the thriftiest of Midas touches, and the only decorator who could spend $999 at a 99-cent store thanks to one mantra, seek “beauty, not luxury.” Tony Duquette was a Renaissance man of film, theatre, interior and jewellery design in Hollywood– if you name it, he probably built it and dipped…
December 28, 2018

A Tale of Two Cities & Beyond with MessyNessyChic in 2018

In 2018, MessyNessyChic became a tale of two cities. We’ll always have Paris, but now we have New York too. In preparation  for Don’t Be a Tourist in New York, book number 2 (touching down in 2019), this year our rabbit hole led us across the pond in search of a sleepless city’s secrets. Armed with a…
December 26, 2018

Downton Abbey in the Bronx

Bartow-Pell mansion is the last of her kind. Tucked down a narrow drive in the far reaches of Pelham Bay in the Bronx, the 348-year-old estate was once one of many retreats built for affluent New Yorkers to hang up their top hats, and relax in Downton Abbey-level splendour. As with many old American mansions,…
November 29, 2018

Vintage Muse du Jour: Peggy Guggenheim, Patron Saint of Art & Sex

You probably know Guggenheim– the name, the museums, the collections– but do you know the woman behind legendary the name (and sunglasses)? Peggy Guggenheim didn’t live the domesticated life that was expected of an heiress. She was her own kind of bohemian, impossible to define, mysterious and in many ways, tragic in her loneliness. But…
November 27, 2018

I Have This Thing with Topiaries

Maybe it’s because, in truth, they’re completely unnecessary but so utterly gratifying when trimmed with precision. Maybe it’s because they transport us to the fantasies of our childhood, both romantic and slightly eerie (we’ve all seen how things end for Jack Nicholson in The Shining), but whatever the reason, we can’t stop staring at topiaries, so…
November 22, 2018

The Problem with America’s Only Royal Palace

At a glance, it could be a corner at Buckingham Palace, but what you’re looking at is the gilded throne room of America’s only royal residency on U.S. soil. This is the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii, built in 1879 for the last sovereign monarchs of Hawaii. Not many people know there’s an American princess in waiting,…
November 20, 2018

Let’s Take a Tea Break at Beatrix Potter’s Cottage

It’s time for a little breather, don’t you think? So today, we’re popping over to Beatrix Potter’s old village, in the calm of England’s Lake District. We’ll stop by Buckle Yeat for a cup of tea, and stroll through the garden where so many of her children’s book characters — namely, Peter Rabbit — got…
November 15, 2018

America’s Beauty School Dropouts: A Brief Compendium

We miss the days when estheticians waxed eyebrows in a Paul Bunyan-ready cottage, perfected their perming skills in a nondescript clapboard shack, and barbers painted their 1969 Volkswagens to match their salon. More than mere institutions for a cute ‘do, the beauty schools and barber shops of yesteryear were visible extensions of major cultural shifts.…
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Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.