Between 1930 and 1934, Hollywood briefly lived in a state of unguarded candor. Before the strict enforcement of the Production Code — better known as the Hays Code — films portrayed sex, violence, vice, and women’s independence with a frankness that would vanish for decades. These “pre-Code” years were short but incandescent, producing a bodyContinue reading “Pre-Code Hollywood: Cinema Before the Rules”
Category Archives: History
Elsie de Wolfe: The First Lady of Interior Design
Long before “interior design” was a profession, Elsie de Wolfe had already invented it. A woman of dazzling wit, formidable ambition, and impeccable taste, she transformed how people thought about domestic space. Her life — stretching from Gilded Age New York to Belle Époque Paris, from Broadway stages to transatlantic salons — was as theatricalContinue reading “Elsie de Wolfe: The First Lady of Interior Design”
The Sun Also Rises: Hemingway’s Fiesta of Disillusion
When Ernest Hemingway published The Sun Also Rises in 1926 — titled Fiesta in the United Kingdom — he gave modern literature one of its first portraits of what would come to be called the “Lost Generation.” The novel, loosely drawn from his own time in Paris and Pamplona with a circle of expatriate friends,Continue reading “The Sun Also Rises: Hemingway’s Fiesta of Disillusion”
Robert Kime: The Quiet Master of English Decoration
In an age of flashy interiors and Instagram-ready spectacle, Robert Kime represented something else entirely: a philosophy of beauty that was subtle, timeless, and deeply humane. To his clients — among them King Charles III, the Duke of Beaufort, and generations of collectors and aesthetes — he was not just a decorator but a custodianContinue reading “Robert Kime: The Quiet Master of English Decoration”
Emily Lloyd: A Brilliant Spark of 1990s Cinema
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a moment when Emily Lloyd seemed destined to define a generation of cinema. With her wide, mischievous smile, her London-bred irreverence, and her startling ability to move between comedy and pathos, she felt like a new kind of screen presence: unvarnished, spontaneous, utterly alive. That sheContinue reading “Emily Lloyd: A Brilliant Spark of 1990s Cinema”
Axel Vervoordt: The Alchemist of Atmosphere
There are interior designers, and then there are philosophers who happen to work with furniture and space. Axel Vervoordt belongs to the latter. For more than half a century, the Belgian designer, collector, and dealer has cultivated a vision of interiors as places of contemplation. His aesthetic — part wabi-sabi, part European antiquarianism, part avant-gardeContinue reading “Axel Vervoordt: The Alchemist of Atmosphere”
Teffi: Wit, Exile, and the Art of Survival
There are writers who chronicle history from the center of power, and there are writers who record it from the margins, turning displacement itself into a vantage point. Teffi, born Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya in 1872, belonged firmly to the latter. Known in her lifetime as a humorist, satirist, and chronicler of Russian émigré life, she hasContinue reading “Teffi: Wit, Exile, and the Art of Survival”
Slim Aarons: The Man Who Photographed the Good Life
“Attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.” Slim Aarons’ pithy description of his own work became both motto and myth. For decades, he chronicled the leisure class — sun-dappled heiresses in Palm Beach, bronzed movie stars in Palm Springs, aristocrats lounging on the Côte d’Azur. His images became shorthand for mid-century glamour: candid yetContinue reading “Slim Aarons: The Man Who Photographed the Good Life”
Kelly Wearstler: The Queen of Californian Cool
For more than two decades, Kelly Wearstler has been rewriting the language of American interiors. Her aesthetic — maximal yet disciplined, glamorous yet grounded — has defined a generation of design. From boutique hotels to celebrity homes, furniture lines to Instagram feeds, Wearstler has built a career that is at once wildly eclectic and meticulouslyContinue reading “Kelly Wearstler: The Queen of Californian Cool”
Singles and the Soundtrack of the 1990s
Before Reality Bites defined Generation X in cinema, Cameron Crowe’s Singles (1992) caught the mood of a subculture just as it was cresting into the mainstream: grunge. Set in Seattle at the dawn of the decade, the film is less a tight narrative than an ensemble sketch, drifting between the apartments, cafés, and concert hallsContinue reading “Singles and the Soundtrack of the 1990s”
My World of Interiors 