15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000
Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Nostalgia
December 13, 2018

The Bittersweet Story of the World’s First Motel

It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an indispensable amenity to the roving motorist; the…
December 12, 2018

The Picasso of Circus Art

History didn’t know what to do with Fred G. Johnson. On the one hand, he was just another hard-working Chicago teen in the signage business, and far from a classically trained portrait artist. Yet, there weren’t many in the sign painting game making banners for “Bearded Brenda” or “Huey the Pretzel Man”; “Josephine the Electric Girl”…
December 11, 2018

Love, Espionage and Alien Vibrations: Tales of a Soviet Music Machine

What do Lady Gaga and Lenin have in common? They’ve both played the theremin– the world’s first mass-produced electrical instrument, invented by the same guy who created a covert Soviet listening device that sat undetected for 7 years inside the American Embassy in Moscow (planted by Russian school children, no less). The extraordinary story of…
December 5, 2018

Backstage with the Real “Almost Famous” Queen of Groupies

If someone told you their earliest romantic encounters were with David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger, you’d either slap them or roll your eyes. Unless that someone was Bebe Buell, of course. In the 1970s, the American model just so happened to be in the right place, at the right time, well, countless times, solidifying…
November 30, 2018

Strange Objects of Desire: Victorian Glassware

If there’s one thing I’m almost certain about when it comes to Victorians–it’s that they had a heck of a lot of time on their hands. Without Instagram to fill those empty moments, Pinterest to procrastinate through their evenings or Netflix to swallow up their weekends, Victorians by default, were a pretty creative and curious bunch.…
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 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 16, 2018

Diary of a Tomb Raider

Can you imagine being among the first to study an ancient site? How you would feel brushing your fingers against those ancient monoliths, untouched for thousands of years, hidden in the thick of the jungle. You would think the days for such an adventure are long gone; that there’s nothing left to discover nowadays– but…
1 2 … 150

NESSY ON INSTAGRAM

ABOUT NESSY
Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.