A history lesson on Storyville: the red light district of New Orleans
Storyville is the topic I’m pretty passionate about and know a bit about so I thought making a video might be a little more fun than a long caption this time.
Stay tuned to the end I promise it’s worth it and you can see what sex I’ll be using next for my historical sex toy series ☺️💋
A black cupless bra and Votes For Women pins made for the shop based on original women’s suffrage pins from the 1900’s!
In the United States, women gained the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, ratified in the summer of 1920.
Women’s suffrage had been a long-standing debate, for about 70 years prior to the Amendment being passed. Women’s suffragists groups, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony often did see eye to eye with other suffragists like Lucy Stone and Frances Walker. It wasn’t until the Women’s Christian Temperance movement threw their weight behind a woman’s right to vote that meaningful traction began, but unfortunately tied strict religious morals to the support; more specifically the idea of Prohibition, which for obvious reasons was largely unpopular.
Maybe unsurprisingly, Louisiana led a multi-state attempt to stop the amendment from being passed, citing that women didn’t have the mental capacity to vote. Obviously the attempts ultimately failed and roughly 20 million women joined those eligible to vote.
In the opposite end of the spectrum, Wyoming was one of the first states to allow women to vote, way back in 1869!
A deadstock, tags-on original jacket from Bumble that was produced when they first launched in 2014.
It’s too new to be considered a vintage piece, but it’s still pretty cool. 🐝
A string bikini. I’m sure you’re probably not reading any further at this point but for what it’s worth, Bunny Yeager was a famous photographer in the 1950s, mostly known for her photographs of Bettie Page. She was a woman of many trades and designed bikinis and subsequently photographed models in them which was a driving force in why the bikini is so popular today.
PS I guess I need to stop leaning against this mirror or clean it after 🙈
The second part in my series on the history of sex toys! A stone dildo 🩶
The history lesson is here on the wall and the video trying it out is in your inboxes!
A vintage white lace garter belt with attached stockings.
No history lesson today, just enjoy the view. Class dismissed 💋
A 1970s white top and denim bell bottoms from the same era. I felt like the episode from The Office where Michael gets a new pair of jeans. I didn’t want to take them off 😎
One of the driving reasons behind the association of bell bottoms as a style icon in the 1970s is somewhat attributed to people thrifting the bell bottoms. Bell bottoms were originally worn in the 1940s (and a little post WW2) by the Navy. The following generations began to thrift them and style them as an anti-war/non-conformism and it became the “it” denim of that era.
If you go a generation or few farther back in time: bell bottoms were originally worn by Navy men (apparently sea men is a forbidden word?) because you could easily remove them without having to remove your shoes if you fell off a ship, thereby increasing the likelihood you could tread water until help came!
A 1920s slip,
1950s nylons (in great shape but man, nylons have no stretch and do not stay up unless you have them clipped into a garter belt. The modern version beats the vintage version here),
and a coffee table book “The Pinup” by Mark Gabor which was published in the 1970s as an anthology of pinup art from its inception. If you can get your hands on an original printing it’s well worth it. Mine is dog-eared and much loved.
An 80s leather jacket, thick cuffed Big Ben deadstock denim and a handprinted Votes for Women tee.
The Votes for Women design is from an original 1929s women’s suffrage pennant that we made a linocut block with, and hand printed tees for the shop.
It’s been a minute since I sent spicy photos to your inboxes - go check out the extra snaps from this set. Worth it, promise 💋🖤
From the 1960s: a cotton bra and a gingham apron perfect for wearing nothing but lingerie on underneath 😘
2024-04-08 05:01:09 +0000 UTC View Post
These are three, original, 1970s tees made by John Lennon for Yoko Ono.
Back in 1970, John Lennon designed these tees & produced them in a very limited number to send to his inner circle of friends.
The Yoko Ono tee was specifically sent out for friends to wear in photos that were combined into an album for Yoko Ono’s birthday.
The Mrs. Lennon shirt is even more scarce, with the only previously sold example being John Lennon’s personally owned tee.
We got these from a friend whose grandfather attended Yoko’s estate sale at The Dakota! They’ve already been sold to a well known rare t-shirt collector. 🖤☮️
A sheer handkerchief (likely circa 1920s and made for mourning) with black lace trim and a black lace garter belt.
The only thing I mourned while taking these photos was my clothes - the mosquitos are out here now that spring is in full swing 😵💫
Mosquitos are mostly an annoying pest here in the modern world but but for New Orleanians of the past it was a deadly season for decades. It was aptly named The City of the Dead as every summer the mosquitos, in high numbers from the surrounding swamp and wooden cisterns (sea levels are too high - you couldn’t dig a well) around the Quarter, served as a breeding ground.
By the summer of 1853, nearly 8,000 people died so the city took action to stop the epidemic by…burning tar and fire canons to “shake the disease from the air.”
By 1905 it became evident that water was the source and more effective measures were taken. Mosquitoes are still a nuisance but at least they won’t kill you.
A vintage shop still life:
A 1920s cash register originally from the Jax Brewery here in New Orleans that was used in a variety of settings, the last of which was a nightclub in the 1970s where it was then put into storage until it regained new life on my mercantile checkout counter. It still works and, amazingly, has IDs and other paraphernalia confiscated by the nightclub bouncers back in the 1970s. Opening the drawer is like stepping back in time.
An ultra rare 1970s tee made by John Lennon for Yoko,
My bag with neat patches and pins I’ve collected along the way (mostly NASA stuff 🤓)
A print of Noel Rockmore’s “Homage to the French Quarter” and beside it, a rare piece from Gypsy Lou Webb, with her handwritten annotations on a piece of art summarizing the work of the Loujon Press after it ended.
And also coffee.
A brief history of sex toys: Part 1
I’m excited to offer the first of my series on the history of sex toys! I had the luxury of getting to try out a historically accurate, hand – carved wooden dildo from France.
A very big thank you to the sub who bought me the whole toy outright. It was my first custom-made sex toy and I’m thrilled to have it.
If you enjoy this, go head over to your inbox after this – I sent a video to you of me trying out the wooden dildo. I’m very pleased to say that, despite it being made of an unforgiving material, it felt so good that I couldn’t walk straight after I recorded it. 😛🥵💋
A military souvenir jacket from Germany and a pair of lace thigh highs - both from the 80s ❤️
2024-04-03 05:10:31 +0000 UTC View Post
A 1960s satin nightgown and a copy of Delta of Venus - a collection of Erotica written by Anais Nin in the 1940s and published in the 1970s after her death.
The book was commissioned, along with other short stories by famous authors (Henry Miller, poet George Barkee) by a then-anonymous source.
Nin is credited as having taken something pornographic and transformed it into an art medium.
It’s after Easter but I had one more vintage lingerie set so pretend it’s still Easter 🐣 I’ve got stuff way better than candy 🍭
I was going to do a profile on the historic, long-standing history of April Fools’ Day but holy cow it’s a long history and not nearly as entertaining as expect so just enjoy the photos 💋
She is risen ⛅️ 💋
Wearing a 1950s satin and lace bed jacket over a 1940s slip skirt and a 1940s beaded clutch full of Easter candy 🍭 🍬 🍫
A vintage pastel nightgown and white gloves 💜🤍
2024-03-30 05:01:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy Friday to you!
I’m wearing a floor-length antique ceremonial robe with a rope belt and nothing on underneath it. I’ve talked about the Odd Fellows a lot lately, so class dismissed - enjoy recess and go check your inboxes for a long edging video of me in this thing and find time to unwind this weekend. 🖤💋
A little more of the gloves and garter belt 🖤
2024-03-28 06:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
SHE’S A RAINBOW 🌈 👅
An original, iconic, 1980s Rolling Stones tour tee.
Only accepting comments in the form of your favorite Rolling Stones song.
A souvenir jacket with some really neat 70s patches on it.
Covering up his name with the word “weed” and the arms with astrology patches is a cool reminder that despite being enlisted, there was still a large counterculture movement of flower children following the Vietnam War era.
This one was from someone who served on both the USS Ponce, and the USS Saipan in the late 70s, early 80s.
A vintage athletic set from Tulane 💚
Tulane was founded in 1834 here in New Orleans and is generally regarded as a “hidden ivy” (or, a really good school that isn’t one of the Ivy League schools). It’s got a lot of great programs, but one of the coolest is their Tropical Medicine & Infect!ous D!sease program which actually started back in the 1830s and by the 1960s grew so large that a 500-acre complex was purchased along the Abita river to house pr!mate facilities.
Like any infect!ous d!sease research center, it hasn’t been without interesting controversy, from concerns over using the mon keys in exper!ments during the early US space program (how fast can a pr!mate be spun and at what projectile will they vom*t if we recreate conditions in space?), to rare d!sease outbreaks and how to best manage them, to mon keys escaping into the surrounding neighborhoods.
Perhaps the most interesting (and totally unfounded) is the 2007 book “Dr. Mary’s Mon keys”, which is a long winded, convoluted take on how Dr. Mary Sherman, a New Orleans physician and member of the Tulane faculty overseeing pr!mate research was m-r-dered on St. Charles Ave back in the 1960s as a (get this!):
“consp!racy tale involving a clandestine an!mal lab; a heavily guarded linear accelerator; monkees from Tulane Med!cal; a high school science fair winner and Lee Harvey Oswald’s secret lover; and a plot to k *ll Fidel Castro with cancer causing monkee cells orchestrated by a right wing marriage between Carlos Marcello and Alton Ochsner, Sr. – the stealth v!ruses were then sent to Haiti where they simmered for almost two decades before erupting into a worldwide ep!demic of various cancers and A! DS.“
If you need some wild beach reading, this would be it. (Or, The Martian. Unrelated to Tulane but still good reading).
TL:DR like any long-standing institution in New Orleans, Tulane is not without wild tales throughout its history. 💚
From the archive of photos I haven’t posted: thoroughly enjoying the waterfall stone shower.
For those that have been here awhile, this is in the same private pool and courtyard that sits atop the oldest cemetery in New Orleans. When the current owners went to install the pool some 10 years ago, they discovered bones and ended up doing an excavation finding burials from the 1700s!
Petition to make petticoats great again!
Unsurprisingly, petticoats have been around a long time. The word itself comes from the old English phrase “pety coat” or small coat, intended to be worn under a dress, acceptable to be visible, and protected the expensive fabrics of a dress from touching the ground. They were also intended to help air move through the ankles and by the late 1500s you’d be considered out of fashion to not be wearing one.
By the 1800s, petticoats were all the rage, with ankle-revealing “polonaise” style gowns - giving way to the petticoat become increasingly associated as not just an undergarment, but with an more detailing in the design and made from materials like silk instead of crisp cotton, as lingerie.
By the 1800, petticoats stacked with underwire bodices contributed to the large hoop skirts fashion of that time, followed by a resurgence in the 1950s thanks to the popularity of Christian Dior’s designs.
It’s giving majorette but I’m kind of here for it.
This thing is a 1930s/40s chainstitched wool ceremonial coat from the Sioux City Shriners. how this thing found its way out of the top of a barn in Iowa onto my body nearly a century later, I don’t know, but the universe likes to troll sometimes and, like this piece, I’m here for it.
The Shriners, not dissimilar from the Freemasons or the Oddfellows, are a long standing fraternity. Back in the 1870s, a group of Masons branched off and created what was originally known as the “Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” with the most important purpose of: having fun (in addition to the philanthropy and community work).
Here’s the Masonic cape from the antique ceremonial scene bearer robe I mentioned last week!
It’s from the 1930s/40s and was used as part of ceremonial dress for Masonic events. ❤️🖤
An antique silk dress over loads of petticoats, and also a fun angle 😻
2024-03-20 06:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Who knew 90s VS lingerie would be such a hit?
Hit me with your favorite 90s songs 👇🏻