A Photographer’s Forgotten Muse on the French Riviera

There was definitely something about Renée. When the legendary French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue met her while strolling the streets of Paris in 1930, he fell in love instantly. Tall, chic and hiding coquettishly under a wide elegant hat, he nicknamed her the ‘parasol’. Together they embarked on what Lartigue remembers as an “eternal vacation”, a dreamlike two-year holiday in the…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CXCIII)

1. Camping Goals From a ’67 magazine ad: the legentary amphibious + convertible Amphicar Model 770, pulling the ab fab 4.30m long amphibious + fully equipped mobile home Suleica F430 SwimmCaravan, both sold briefly during the 1960s in the USA by German companies. Found on We Waste Time 2. Place Invaders PlaceInvaders is a one-of-a-kind traveling pop-up dining…

The Most Mysterious Mansion in London is For Sale

Malplaquet House is one of those places that makes everyone in the neighbourhood, or anyone walking past its mysterious overgrown gates, wish they could get a look inside. A home worthy of Miss Havisham herself, until recently this stellar cabinet of curiosities was one of London’s forgotten mansions, uninhabited for over a century, heading towards a fate…

The Prima Ballerina who had the Real Swan Lake

She was one of the greatest ballerinas of all time, the first to ever tour around the world with her own company, making it her mission to bring ballet to audiences who had never heard of it, in small towns and faraway countries with very different traditions. Most recognised for her famous performance of The Dying Swan,…

All the Sneaky Tricks of Prohibition Bootleggers

I found this photograph floating around on the internet today of a truck ingeniously camouflaged by bootleggers during the Prohibition, being inspected by authorities in Los Angeles, California. You can tell even those inspectors are impressed by the level of artful deviousness. It got me curious to see what other tricks these bootleggers tried. The crazier the caper,…

Windows of War: How Parisians Prepared for Attack

For seven straight days in September 1914, Paris became a World War I battleground as German pilots dropped 50 bombs on the city during the First Battle of the Marne. Notre Dame Cathedral was damaged and notes were dropped alongside the bombs demanding the immediate surrender of Paris and the French nation. How do you go about…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CXCII)

1. Smile Therapy When women were unhappy or not “taking care of their men properly”, their husbands could send them to the psych ward for attitude adjustments. This was part of conditioning them to always wear a smile. They believed that if a woman saw herself smiling that it would become natural practice and that…

What the Paris Flood Really Looks Like

I posted this photo yesterday on Instagram and noticed it provoked a stronger reaction than I’d anticipated. People hold such love and concern for our city of light, but I just want to assure you that everything is perfectly under control. Well, sort of… So you might have heard that the Louvre is moving art to higher ground. It…

Style Queens of 1960s Saigon

I was going through a giant archive of old photographs (yes another one), mostly taken by Westerners over in Vietnam during the war, when I started to develop a very unexpected style crush. Who knew Mod fashion made it to 1960s Vietnam? As it turns out, until the early 1970s, before the fall of Saigon, street fashion in South Vietnam adopted elements of…

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Found Photographs of Perfect American Road Trips, Fifty Years Too Late

Trailer parks just don’t look like this anymore! What I wouldn’t give to go back 50 years and re-do the American road trip just like I picture it in my mid-century kodachrome dreams. Today I found a fabulous Flickr account full of old slides and photographs found at estate sales and garage sales by a nostalgic…

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