This Empty Sicilian Town is Giving away Free Houses

There are records at Ellis Island in New York showing that between 1892 and 1924, the small Sicilian town of Gangi lost about 1,700 of its residents to the American dream. They abandoned their homes to board trans-Atlantic ocean liners, sold to the prospect of a better life by shipping agents pushing emigration in the region. Those…

Meet the Original “Victoria’s Secret” Beauties of the 1920s

When looking at black and white photographs of women considered glamorous in the 1920s and early 20th century, I often find it difficult to relate to their look. Their make-up is strange and melodramatic, their hairstyles usually unflattering and even macabre; almost like there was a preference for a rather un-natural beauty. But then I came across…

London’s Lost Department Store of the Swinging Sixties

If you thought that Harvey Nichols or Harrods were the epitome of a London fashion department store, it’s time to re-introduce you to Big Biba, a fallen icon of the Swinging Sixties that redefined the High Street shopping experience… It all started in 1964, when a small-time mail order business called Biba’s Postal Boutique advertised…

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Wander through the Sicilian Village in a Cave, Frozen in Time

In the province of Trapani, Sicily, there’s a portal through time about eighty meters high and seventy meters deep. Nestled inside the natural opening of two mountain peaks, lies a tiny village, consisting of quaint earth-colored houses, a chapel, stables, workshops and one cobbled main street. The village “piazza” of Grotto Mangiapane is located at the mouth of the cave where…

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

1. Collages of Detroit: Then & Now “Not very long ago, Detroit was a rich, beautiful city, full of vibrant people. I found pictures from the previous century and combined them with the photographs I took during my most recent visit to Detroit.” – Flora Borsi. “What if these people from the past could see their…

A Compendium of Vintage Postcards from the Great American Road Trip

The annual weekends of sparklers, parades and sending your neighbours smoke signals is soon upon us, and there’s no other way I wish I could be spending the 4th of July than on the great American open road, visiting the weirdest and kitschiest roadside attractions America has to offer… However, since I’m a (half) American in…

The Radium Girls and the Generation that brushed its Teeth with Radioactive Toothpaste

The Radium Girls were so contaminated that if you stood over their graves today with a Geiger counter, the radiation levels would still cause the needles to jump more than 80 years later. They were small-town girls from New Jersey who had been hired by a local factory to paint the clock faces of luminous watches, the latest new…

The Apocalypse that Shrunk South London

Not Chernobyl. Not a sunken cruise ship at the bottom of the ocean. In that order, those were my guesses as to what exactly I was looking at when I first squinted my eyes at these photographs. If you haven’t guessed yourself yet, this just about combines two of the most fascinating things to me; miniature art…

Here’s a Catalog of Secret Paris Filming Locations used by French Industry Scouts

I have a friend who works in the industry, who sent me a link to a website thanks to her very astute intuition telling her that it might interest me. MiRES is a Paris-based agency dedicated to finding the most beautiful, unique and unusual shooting locations in and outside of the French capital. A best-kept secret of the film, fashion…

The Fantastic Folding Mini-Motel Caravan, 1959

You probably know by now that caravans are one of my favourite things and with summer holidays and road trip wanderlust in the air, I’d like to present my latest find, the (fantastic) folding Mini-Motel caravan. Somewhat forgotten in automobile history, I came across it in this terribly English promotional feature from 1959 through the archive of British Pathé… The Mini-Motel,…