The Art Spy who Stopped Hitler from Emptying the Louvre

An unlikely superhero spy; a bookish art historian in a paisley print dress, posing rather meekly beside her inventory of valuable museum works. But behind the innocent smile and the matronly garb, Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a lone female agent of espionage who, during WW2, tirelessly and valiantly put her life on the line for…

Turn up the Volume on a Forgotten American Jazz Queen of Mid-Century Paris

Amid the fervent jazz revival that swept Paris in the years following World War II, a host of American musicians found a second home on the banks of the Seine. Paris became a cherished haven for many Black artists whose creativity often ran up against racial barriers in the United States. Although legends like Sidney…

Silent Saviour: How Marcel Marceau Used Mime to Save Lives in WWII

His name is synonymous with the art of mime, a performer whose silent expressions spoke volumes. But beyond his pale-faced persona and invisible walls lies a story of remarkable bravery and heroism. During World War II, Marceau used his unique talents to save children from the horrors of Nazi-occupied France, first using mime to help…

Twisted Treasures: The Quirky World of Telephone Cord Bag Collecting

We love a fashion moment wrapped in a mystery, which is precisely what happened when fate, or chance, or whatever, first brought us to our dream handbag. There, in the sea musty bins at the Brooklyn Flea, it glimmered: a purse made up of cream coloured coils…dare we say, telephone cords? It was bold, campy,…

A Libertine’s 5-Step Lifestyle Plan, Courtesy of Colette’s Lost Lover

1. Keep everyone guessing with numerous aliases and identities Mathilde de Morny presumed many nicknames. Friends called her “Missy”, but in her artistic endeavours, she also went by the pseudonym “Yssim” (an anagram of Missy). When dressed in men’s clothing, she preferred “Max”, or sometimes “Uncle Max” or “Monsieur le Marquis”. When she arrived in Paris…

The Familiar Hollywood Tale of How Screen Legend Veronica Lake Wound up Working in a Dive Bar

In 1962, a reporter with the New York Post got a tip that screen goddess of the 1940s, Veronica Lake, was working as a barmaid in the lobby of the Martha Washington Hotel, a low rent boarding house in Midtown Manhattan. Using the name Connie de Toth, she said she enjoyed her job because “I…

A Night at the Gargoyle, London’s Forgotten Den of Debauchery Decked out in Matisse’s Masterpieces

London of the 1920s was the time of the Bright Young Things, the group of aristocrats and socialists who flourished in the years following World War I and before the economic crisis that would hit the globe at the end of the decade. And there was no other place that served more as a central…

New York’s Real-Life Handmaid’s Tale

Revivalist sects, polyamorous communes and radical experiments in communal living – America was rife with it all in the mid 19th century – but not exactly where you might expect. Forget the Bible Belt. In western New York state, so many religious revival groups seemed to be popping up in and setting it afire with…

Greetings, from North America’s Uranium Ghost Towns

North America has its own Chernobyl(s). There are gold rush ghost towns, and then there are uranium ghosting towns; settlements which grew out of the “uranium fever” of the first part of the 20th century and testaments to an era when fear of nuclear war led to an unprecedented rush for a previously low-value mineral. But…

From the Beatles to Britney Spears, a History of Hidden Messages in Songs

The history of backmasking goes back to the early 20th century with occultist Aleister Crowley, who in his 1913 book Magick, suggested thinking backward by “external means,” such as listening to a phonographic record in reverse. It started as a fun urban legend. Musicians recorded secret messages backwards, inserting them into their songs. The Beatles…