Vacation Inside the Belly of California’s Whale House

There’s a sleeping giant in the trees of Santa Barbara, California. Some call it “the Whale House”; others the “the Snail House” thanks to its hypnotic curves, which camouflage so well into the trees that they’re easily missed. The mansion is like a portal into a 1970s SoCal fairytale for locals, and the occasional tourist, of…

That Quiet Couple Next Door Who Brought Magic Mushrooms to the Masses

Ah the psychedelic 60s, what a time to be out of your mind. It’s easy to assume bohemian beatniks, free lovin’ hippies, and prog rockers popularised mind-bending medicines to everyday folk, but let’s go back a step before we start spiralling. Who’d have thought that American counterculture was kickstarted in the most conforming of places,…

Meet the Trendsetting Mystics that gave The Beatles their Psychedelic Style

The Fool left its mark all over the 1960s, but few can match the name to the art today. The Dutch collective of artists and designers who named themselves after a Tarot card that’s often numbered as zero in the deck – as in the first – were unquestionable pioneers of the psychedelic aesthetic that defined…

When Big Brands were Getting High in the Seventies

In the late 1960s and 70s, America’s big corporations could see the psychedelic writing on the wall and they knew they had to do something. A wave of psychedelia was taking over pop culture and the LSD-infused hippie aesthetic was huge. The influence of drug culture on some of the most iconic brands saw everyone…

Misadventures of the Psychedelic Rock Queen Who Tried to Spike Nixon’s Drink

Grace Slick is the the psychedelic queen who didn’t give a f**k– literally, she was the first to say the word on American television when she sang it in a song with her rock band, Jefferson Airplane. She was Janis Joplin’s drinking buddy, a talented songwriter with a wicked sense of humour, and the woman who plotted…

That 1960s Revolution of the Underground Press is Still Alive & Well

Let’s go back for a moment to the swinging sixties in London’s Notting Hill. Portobello Road is the main artery of the hippie movement, heaving with bohemians musicians and freethinking “freaks”, as they’re known to the establishment. Jimmy Hendrix hasn’t yet taken a fatal overdose in his flat and British counter-culture is on the rise.…

Was Inflatable Furniture Really All that Bad?

As we dream of sipping an ice cold margarita on a floaty pool mattress, far from the stuffiness of our cubicles, a certain nostalgia comes to mind: the age of 1960s, blow up “living.” Through furniture, rooms, even a car, the inflatable life brought a welcome touch of relaxation and sheer goofiness to a design…

My Hometown Masonic Lodge Turned Psychedelic Art House

Let this story be a lesson to you to never, ever underestimate how many wild secrets are hiding under your nose. Your own small town is probably hiding more treasures than an un-excavated pyramid—probably because no one thinks to look there. Where are you right now? Who built the building? Who owned it? What’s under…

Like Picasso, But on Acid

Picasso, is that you? You have to admit, Jean Lurçat (above) is almost a dead ringer for Pablo. Same stocky build, same receding hairline. Just swap the cable-knit sweater for a Breton-striped shirt, and boom. We did a bit of digging to find out who this mysterious dopplegänger was, and realised that Lurçat and Picasso…

Find your Inner Hippie at the Trippy AirBnB Pad in the Hollywood Hills

The seventies are back. Come on, be excited! You might recall they had another style comeback some time in the 90s (I was in the 8th grade trying to pull off flared jeans), but this time around, I’m really ready for it, having spent the last several years on this blog educating myself about such eras and absorbing the mood, the colours…