We all know that taking a summer vacation to the French Riviera is the ultimate in high-class living, but it wasn't always so. Before the 1920s, the region wasn't world-renowned, and the French who could afford to sojourn there only did so in the winter. Then came the Americans to change that.
In the summer of 1923, an American husband and wife could be credited with two rather surprising things. Their name is seldom remembered in the context of the glamorous 1920s, but the French Riviera became the summer destination it is today thanks to the infectious expatriate couple known as the Murphys. Gerald and Sarah convinced their circle of friends to summer with them in Cap d’Antibes at a time when the fashionable only wintered there, leaving the region abandoned during the high summer months. Their pals included a young Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau and a great number of artists and writers of the Lost Generation who fell into the couple’s orbit.
Read about the Murphys, their social circle, and their influence on the lifestyles of the rich and famous at Messy Nessy Chic. You'll see a lot of historically fascinating pictures, too.
