What was the Deal with Marcel Duchamp and Chess?

It’s a question we asked ourselves recently in a Messy Nessy editorial meeting after finding yet another photograph of the 20th century artist playing chess in some unusual, avant-garde manner. Discovering a person’s hobby can be so deliciously voyeuristic. It’s a window into the way they switch-off from the world, and one made all the…

Heartbreak Hides in the Walls of This Paris Mansion

Museums are usually a feast for the eyes, but rarely are they this much of a treat for the heart. Cozied up beside Paris’ Parc Monceau you’ll find just that: the opulent Musée Nissim de Camondo, a perfectly preserved mansion from 1911 that belonged to the affluent Camondo family. As stunning as the interiors and antiques are, it’s the…

From Frida to Shakespeare, the Amazing Things They Did whilst “Social Distancing”

In around 1603, a poet had a decision to make. With a plague underway in England, he could choose to answer to fear, or answer to the muse. Luckily for us, the writer – one Mr. William Shakespeare – decided to put pen to paper (quill to parchment?) and turn out one of his greatest…

Reviving the Art of Cutaway with a Femme Twist

We’ve always got time for some incredible cutaway art. There’s just something about the attention to detail – the pure voyeurism – that makes it the ultimate eye candy. Today’s escape comes courtesy of American artist Hilary Harkness, whose cutaways are a veritable Where’s Waldo for adults, filled with raucous scenes of women dominating traditionally…

The Beautiful, Weird World of Japan’s Answer to David Lynch

If home is where the heart is, House (1977) is where the mind unravels. The experimental film by director Nobuhiko Obayashi is a beautiful, Surrealist venture into the horror genre that’s slowly but surely getting its due credit in the Western world. Where to even begin with Mr. Obayasi? His finger-eating piano? Ghostly watermelons? He’s…

Saving Sobański Palace

We thought we knew how the story would end. After all, we’ve seen our fair share of crumbling castles here at Messy Nessy Chic – chateaux holding on for dear life in the final hours of their swan song, left to the whims of nature and urbex explorers. Restoring them is a near anachronistic quest,…

The Canary Girls and the WWI Poisons That Turned Them Yellow

At lunchtime, the women had to be separated in the cafeteria because everything they touched turned yellow. They were called the “Canary Girls” because of their bright yellow skin and green or ginger-coloured hair. With the nation’s men at war and male labour in short supply, Britain’s women had been recruited to ramp up production ammunition and were…

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…

The Real “No-Go Zone” of France: A Forbidden No Man’s Land Poisoned by War

When you imagine France and its scenic countryside, you might think of the picturesque villages, vineyards a plenty and endless rolling green hills to drive through on a blissful summer road trip. But there’s one corner of this scenic country that no one has been allowed to enter for nearly a century, known as the “Zone Rouge” (the red zone).…

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…