April 2009 Archives

Be Seen In Wickstead

Be Seen In Wickstead

Twenty-five-year-old Auckland-born fashion designer Emilia Wickstead’s “elegantly demure collection of refined, pretty silk separates is already being seen at some of London’s most fashionable locales,” writes Julia Neel for British Vogue “as the well-heeled…

Learning With Light

Learning With Light

Hawkes Bay-based designer David Trubridge’s The Three Baskets of Knowledge features in a Los Angeles Times photo  gallery with an image of “pendulous lighting fixtures that look like giant water droplets suspended in baskets…

During on NZ best

During on NZ best

New Zealander, private arts advisor and curator, Helen Klisser During, who is based in New York and Connecticut, talks to the NYArtsmagazine.com’s D. Dominick Lombardi about New Zealand art. When asked to put New…

Ladyhawke’s in Vogue

Ladyhawke’s in Vogue

Pip Brown aka Ladyhawke, the former-Wellingtonian and undisputed queen of the synthpop revival, is profiled in the April issue of Teen Vogue, as one of “five musical acts who will be in heavy rotate…

Urban Trampers

Urban Trampers

Kate Sylvester’s great-outdoors inspired Take a Hike collection took to the runway at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week with models parading shorts, gaiters and anorak-style dresses. Sylvester told Grazia about the inspiration behind the collection:…

Snowed In

Snowed In

Some of New Zealand’s top ski spots are reviewed by worldwide online ski site On the Snow, including “the quirky ski field that is home to Burton’s The Stash, a natural terrain run with…

Couplets at the Globe

Couplets at the Globe

Hokianga-born actor Rawiri Paratene, well-known for his role as Koro Apirana in Niki Caro’s Whale Rider, is Friar Lawrence in a London Shakespeare’s Globe presentation of Romeo and Juliet, the first New Zealander…

Upritchard’s new work

Upritchard’s new work

London-based New Zealand artist, Francis Upritchard, 32, launched her new book Every Colour By Itself last week, at a reception held at New Zealand House in London by High Commissioner Derek Leask, hosted by…

Something Gained

Something Gained

Defending IndyCar Series champion New Zealander Scott Dixon, 28, has won the Road Runner Turbo Indy 3000 at Kansas Speedway. “We needed something,” Dixon said. “You know, even a sniff of something. Because so…

Transformed in Sydney

Transformed in Sydney

Auckland-based artist Lisa Reihana will consider “what it means to transform the self into another persona”, at an upcoming exhibition entitled Double Take on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from May…

Mothers make green

Mothers make green

Ecostore founder Malcolm Rands has been touring American hypermarket chain Meijer promoting his environmentally friendly household cleaning products, the stores the exclusive retailer of his products. A well-known environmentalist in New Zealand, Rands is…

#105: Edge of Paradise

#105: Edge of Paradise

Edge Message #105 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM Pictured above: Jonathan Porritt, John Key, Melissa Lee, Pip Brown (Ladyhawke),…

Merino magic

Merino magic

For the fourth year running South Canterbury merino farmers Barrie and Yvonne Payne, owners of Visulea Farm in Maungati, have won the Loro Piana Record Bale Award for the highest price paid for a…

Tree Gods Unite

Tree Gods Unite

A ceremony to form a “sister-tree relationship” between Waipoua Forest’s Tane Mahuta and an ancient Japanese cedar tree located on Yakushima Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was held this month at the base…

Man of the match

Man of the match

Captain of the Black Caps and Delhi Daredevils player Daniel Vettori, 30, is interviewed by the Hindustan Times about his role as spinner in T20 and his adjustment to the Indian Premier League. “You have to…

Painted loneliness

Painted loneliness

Christchurch-born painter Euan Macleod has won the 2009 Gallipoli Art Prize, a prize valued at $20,000 for Smoke/Pinklandscape/Shovel which portrays the muddy trenches of World War I. Competition judge John McDonald said: “This year,…

To Henley Royal

To Henley Royal

New Zealand Rowing has confirmed that after the Munich World Cup in June, the entire team will move to England to train at Dorney Lake for Britain’s summer Henley Royal Regatta. The trip, between…

Leading negotiant

Leading negotiant

New Zealand’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Dr David Walker has been appointed as the new Chair of the WTO Doha Round Agriculture Negotiations. Walker replaces fellow New Zealander Crawford Falconer, who…

Embassy Glamour

Embassy Glamour

New Zealand High Commissioner Rupert Holborow hosted a World of Wearable Art show for this year’s Indian contestants at his residence at Chanakyapuri. Blurring the boundaries between art and fashion, of the 10 sculptural…

Alternate landscapes

Alternate landscapes

From next year, the North and South Islands could be renamed in Maori. A discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for…

Eskimo furore

Eskimo furore

The humble Eskimo lolly will remain on New Zealand shelves though lambasted by a Canadian visitor who claimed the confectionary’s shape and name was a racist slur against the Inuit. Seeka Lee Veevee…

2008: Rugby League World Cup Final

2008: Rugby League World Cup Final

A compilation of highlights from the remarkable 2008 Rugby League World Cup Final between the Kiwis and Kangaroos.

Balance in stone

Balance in stone

Waitakere sculptor John Edgar’s ‘Ballast’ exhibition, which uses stone collected from various historic Scottish quarries, will be on show as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival from August 5 through November 30 at the…

Up in the Trees

Up in the Trees

New Zealand directory company Yellow has built a Tree House Restaurant using only resources listed in its books. The restaurant, described by Lucy Gauntlett of the Los Angeles Times as “a graceful pod that…

Space traveller

Space traveller

Gisborne-born aeronautic engineer Lester Waugh has been presented with a New Zealand flag which has traveled 216 times around the earth in the space shuttle Discovery. The gift from Nasa was a “rare honour”,…

Bony buoyancy

Bony buoyancy

Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel The Lovely Bones though “murderous is also optimistic”, headlines USA Today. For all the violence and grief of The Lovely Bones, Jackson believes the movie…

Trailer: LOTR – Fellowship of the Ring

Trailer: LOTR – Fellowship of the Ring

Symphony ire

Symphony ire

New Zealand anti-apartheid activist John Minto recently flew to Capetown to lend his support to 127 families who for the past 14 months have lived in makeshift homes on Symphony Way pavement in the…

Bringing Back Bold

Bringing Back Bold

Artistic director of Lancôme Auckland-born Aaron de Mey, 35, “is one of the new breed of male creative directors shaking up the beauty” who “longs to halt the relentless tide of beige, to put…

Changing fiction

Changing fiction

18 April 2009 – Auckland-based author Witi Ihimaera, 65, is in the process of reworking earlier fiction saying that “as the author grows, so should their stories.” “Writers should be able to transform their…

Ballroom blitz

Ballroom blitz

Professional ballroom dancers Aucklander Erin Boag, 33, and her partner Briton Anton Du Beke who both starred in the successful UK television talent show Strictly Come Dancing, have just completed a documentary for Sky…

Paquin the heroine

Paquin the heroine

On the back of recent success as Sookie Starkhouse in vampire series True Blood, New Zealand Golden Globe winner Anna Paquin turns her talents to a made for television film taking the lead role…

All Fenced in and Loving It

All Fenced in and Loving It

The South Island Tieke is making a protected return home after a 100-year hiatus, as the newest resident of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Forty tiekes, also known as saddlebacks, were released into the predator free…

Ratting Out the Weasels

Ratting Out the Weasels

Stoats, which were first introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century to combat the spread of the rabbit, have  decimated the kiwi population reducing little spotted kiwi and Rowi or Okarito brown kiwi…

All that Jazz

All that Jazz

The rapid growth of New Zealand’s premium new apple variety Jazz has reached another milestone this year with over 1.2 million cartons of apples forecast to be exported in 2009. Revered for its outstanding…

Truly popular

Truly popular

Creator of the 1999 New Zealand reality show Popstars Jonathan Dowling, 46, has changed the face of television sparking spinoff TV formats, such as The X Factor, American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent. Though…

Critical Condition

Critical Condition

Three birds have joined ranks of the critically endangered, after an assessment by a panel of experts analysing data on 428 native birds. The grey duck, the eastern rock hopper penguin, and the grey-headed…

Professionally talking

Professionally talking

The Flight of the Conchords are touring the United States donning “unwieldy” robot costumes and “playfully insulting” theirenthusiastic heckling audiences. At New York City’s Radio City Music Hall by the end of Too Many…

Moa Meals Uncovered

Moa Meals Uncovered

University of Otago postgraduate Jamie Wood collects moa dung, or coprolites, which he finds on tip-offs from hunters who report findings of moa bones. Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide, who specialises in…

On Slick for a First

On Slick for a First

Teenage jockey Samantha Collett — who in only three years has won more than 100 races — rode Sir Slick in the $AU2 million Emirates Doncaster Mile at Royal Randwick, the “biggest race” she’s…

Kakapo Comeback

Kakapo Comeback

The Kakapo, a flightless, nocturnal, critically threatened New Zealand parrot that was long thought extinct, has staged a tiny comeback. Scientists are hailing the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks this year, propelling the total…

Pro and ready for PGA

Pro and ready for PGA

14 April 2009 – Eighteen-year-old New Zealand US Amateur Champion Danny Lee has turned pro, signing a deal believed to be worth $US10 million with IMG. Lee will make his professional debut at the…

Surprises from the Bay

Surprises from the Bay

Craggy Range winemaker Rod Easthope was up at London’s Penthouse Suite of New Zealand House promoting Gimblett Gravels varietals and astonishing the attending 30 or so UK Masters of Wine, sommeliers, wine buyers and…

Harlequins Hero

Harlequins Hero

As Harlequins fly-half, Nick Evans “produced the greatest four minutes of controlled rugby I have been privileged to see against Stade Français” according to Times sports columnist Stuart Barnes. Evans next plays on Sunday…

Beautiful or Else

Beautiful or Else

“In New Zealand some things are taken very seriously and some are not. Sport is serious. Politics is not. Lifestyle is serious; religion less so,” explains Joanna Norris for Abu Dhabi’s English-language newspaper The…

Purple potato on the gravy train

Purple potato on the gravy train

Plant and Food Research, New Zealand’s sole potato breeder, has developed a new purple skinned potato as one of 16 new cultivars bred by the company. Purple Heart, as the potato is called, is…

High Time for Cricket

High Time for Cricket

Two teams consisting of 30 New Zealanders, Australians and Britons will play a Twenty20 cricket match at the foot of Mount Everest in Gorak Shep, which is at an altitude of 5165 metres on April 21…

Whisked Debate

Whisked Debate

Helen Leach, an academic at Otago University, is hoping to settle the origins of the pavlova with recipes found in a 1933 Mothers’ Union cookbook and in a 1929 rural magazine, both calling the…

Sports Refugee Remembered

Sports Refugee Remembered

Wanganui-born journalist Jock Veitch who as a student at Wanganui Collegiate was regarded as a slacker and told there was nothing wrong with him that a game of rugger or cricket couldn’t fix, has…

Home on the Pa

Home on the Pa

Leading member of the Nga Puhi iwi Hone Mihaka is an oral historian guiding tourists about the land of his ancestors and the Ruapekapeka pa, 14km south east of Kawakawa and one of the…

Hitched

Hitched

For those looking to tie the perfect knot, New Zealand is worth the trip halfway across the world, according to Brit Marc Brierly and his fiancée, New Zealander Angie Watson. “Afterwards, everyone said what…

Hokitika’s Wild Side

Hokitika’s Wild Side

The population quadrupled this autumn in Hokitika, as food enthusiasts from around the world flocked to get a taste of the 20th Wildfoods Festival, serving up a host of obscure, adventurous, and downright daring…

#104 New Zealanders In Headlines

#104 New Zealanders In Headlines

Edge Message #104 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM A  big shout out to New Zealanders across the world who have registered at nzedge.com following our promotion…

Reigniting the value of wool

Reigniting the value of wool

As Chair of Wool Partners International, Theresa Gattung is at the forefront of a campaign to reignite the value of one of New Zealand’s oldest export commodities on the world stage. Gattung…

Parisian Hang-Ups

Parisian Hang-Ups

Phillipa ‘Pip’ Brown, 30, that’s Ladyhawke to her fans, is interviewed in Paris, where outside the French capital’s “cavernous Nouveau Casino venue, the line of ticketless opportunists snaking into the fading light speaks for…

To Save the Queen or Not

To Save the Queen or Not

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, 59, who has given her valedictory speech to the House after 27 years as an MP, said the country’s institutions had “evolved a long way from our colonial heritage”….