Weekend Conversation Starters

[Messy Nessy Chic]   Your Girl Friday here! As serendipity would have it, this week’s collection of stories falls right in line with the fact that we’ve just entered Women’s History Month. To toast the occasion, we’ve got an all-star line up of forgotten heroines who rode (or snowshoed) away from prejudice in pursuit of their passions. Meet the [Real-Life Ice Queens]( who conquered the cold from the Arctic to the Alps wearing corsets and dresses. Then there’s our favourite breed of artist, who decided she’d “had enough public sculptures of men sitting on horses” and decided to [grow a giant wheatfield in the middle of New York City]( instead. And did you ever hear about [Hollywood’s first Indian starlette](? Or the [first women who rode around the world alone]( on two wheels? History is rather good at removing these trailblazing women from its history books, so it’s a good thing your weekend conversation starters are filled with stories to share far and wide. Now let’s ride into a new month with some magical women by our side... [Nessy]   [Alone with Her Bike, the First Females to Ride Around the World](  [elspeth]( Happy women’s history month. Which only gives me another reason to write about more incredible humans that also happen to be female. What fascinates me most about the stories of the women I’d like to share with you today, is not that they dared to figure out how to ride a motorbike or infiltrate a…  [Continue Reading](   [Like Picasso, But on Acid](  [1024px-Jean_Lurçat_par_Roger_Pic]( 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.  [Continue Reading](   [One of the World’s Most Beautiful Castles is also a School for Wizards](  [7Kat_Boch]( I‘m not really sure where to start with Mozna Castle. The middle of old nowhere would probably be quite accurate, but to be more specific, this Baroque behemoth lies in old Bohemia, otherwise known as Upper Silesia, Poland. The castle has 365 rooms and 99 spires. Its historical records only date back to the 17th century but excavations in…  [Continue Reading](   [Heartbreak Hides in the Walls of This Paris Mansion](  [Processed with VSCO with c6 preset]( Museums are usually a feast for the eyes, but rarely are they 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 heartbreaking story of…  [Continue Reading](   [Ode to the Lost Blue Train, an Iconic NYC Rooftop Restaurant](  [unnamed]( Bloomingdale’s flagship store on 59th street is one of Manhattan’s most iconic destinations for glitzy shopping. It was also, until a year ago, home to one of the city’s more peculiar, yet glamorous restaurants. Semi-hidden on the roof, and hardly known to the thousands of daily visitors to the department store, was an opulent train…  [Continue Reading](   [And Now Paris Lovers, You can Dress like a Parisian Café Chair](  [bourgine-chairs]( I don’t really have much business being at Paris Fashion week– you’re far more likely to find me at the café with my pichet of wine. And anyway, there’s too much noise surrounding it all to allow someone like me to find stories behind the clothes. But paying no mind to the chaos, a small and…  [Continue Reading](   [That Time a Wheat Field Grew in Downtown New York](  [WheatField]( The 1980s was a weird time to be in New York. Punk was flourishing, but so was crime. There was Basquiat and Keith Haring. The creative energy was non-stop, but tumultuous, and living conditions were gritty and hard for many.  [Continue Reading](   [The Real Ice Queens: Women Who Conquered the Cold Wearing Corsets](  [mountaineers]( Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world’s harshest environments at a time when wearing trousers was still a serious…  [Continue Reading](   [Her Biggest Secret Made Her One of a Kind](  [Screen Shot 2018-02-26 at 18.29.11]( The world almost never knew the real Merle Oberon. For the old Hollywood set she circled in, the actress was just another leading lady, a go-to choice for directors of big-budget flicks like The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) and The Dark Angel (1935), for which she received an Oscar nomination. Her charisma was infectious, and she…  [Continue Reading](   [13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCLXXVI)](  [IMG_6913]( 1. The guy in a white bellbottom suit next to the Führer Today I asked my trusty Ambassadors Club if anyone could shed any light on the significance of those mysterious men in white standing to the right of Hitler in 1938– specifically the one wearing bellbottoms, a black sash around his waist and a…  [Continue Reading](  Interested in Becoming a MessyNessyAmbassador? 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