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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Movie / Music / Book Junkie

Hollywood’s Beguiling Queen of Pre-Code Cinema

If Norma Shearer doesn’t ring a bell like other legendary names of the silver screen might, then you too, have fallen victim to the Hays Code. Before we even knew it as “Hollywood”, the American film industry was producing a surreal amount of extraordinarily liberal and racy movies dominated by strong unapologetic female characters, homosexual…

Refine your Moodboard with this 1970s French Fairytale

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 and parrots, Catherine Deneuve as a Disney-esque princess, the deeply saturated colour palette, fashion tech ahead of its time, oh and pretty much…

What We Can Learn from a Bollywood Blockbuster about Periods

“The curse. Bloody Mary. Time of the Month. Shark Week. Code Red. Aunt Flo.” All over the world, euphemisms exist to discretely convey those four simple words: “I have my period”. In the media, the word ‘period’ was not mentioned on television until the 1980s and it seems the western approach for combatting period stigma is…

Bridgerton’s Black Presence isn’t Total Fantasy, it’s Hidden History

There’s a reason why Google autofills questions about the authenticity of Black presence in 17th and 18th century Europe – lots of people are asking. The hit Netflix show Bridgerton is Shonda Rimes’ first historical drama, but anyone who enjoys the screenwriter’s work (be it Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and many more), knows that…

The Forgotten Cafés where the British Beats Used To Meet

We have all heard of the Beat Generation, but have you been keeping up with the Kardomahs? Across the pond from Ginsberg’s gang and a couple of decades earlier, there was a group of bohemian artists and writers who beat them to it. The Kardomah Gang are Wales’ and the world’s forgotten intellectual boyband, who…

Here’s Prince, Holding Court in his First Filmed Interview

Prince rarely gave live interviews, but when he did, he had a way of mesmerising the audience. We dug up this rare clip from 1985 when the artist agreed to talk in front of cameras for the first time ever. It’s a rather peculiar conversation in which his then-manager Steve Fargnoli (who later sued the singer…

Legendary Paris Nightclub of the 80s Reopens as a Cultural Shrine to David Bowie

On a steamy summer night in 1981, it wasn’t unusual to find David Bowie surrounded by Paris’ premiere debs and drag queens, tossing around a blow-up ball in an underground discotheque pool, or Grace Jones singing “La Vie en Rose” on a Harley Davidson at clubs like Le Palace – the French capital’s answer to Studio…

The Lost Romance of Dance Cards

If you’ve been watching Netflix’s sauciest new period drama, Bridgerton, your curiosity might have been aroused (among other things) by the notable nod to a forgotten footnote of historical dating etiquette – dance cards! In between the sexually-charged scenes of one of Netflix’s most binge-watched shows of late, the bygone ballroom accessory made numerous appearances…

A Virtual Dinner Date at the Parisian Restaurant That Inspired “Ratatouille”

Opening a restaurant is like playing service industry roulette. Yet, somehow, Paris’ La Tour d’Argent — quite literally, “The Silver Tower” — says it’s survived 436 years of history on the Left Bank, with a backside view of Notre Dame, as the unmatched king of posh Parisian cuisine. Whether it’s really that old is almost irrelevant; it’s become a…
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