NZEDGE News — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Blackpink Light up the Sky on Netflix

Whether you’re just a casual fan or a full time “blink”, everyone can take delight in the fact that South Korean pop sensation Blackpink – an all-girl group, including New Zealand-born Rosé (pictured back,…

New Zealand’s Political Debates Show What Changes When Two Women Lead

“New Zealand’s recent election, which ended up with an electoral landslide for the incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, says something about women in leadership roles. With the leaders of New Zealand’s two biggest parties…

Billion-Dollar Start-Up Allbirds Launches Apparel

Allbirds, the San Francisco brand whose wildly popular £95 wool trainers and low-carbon ethos earned it a valuation of $1.7bn from investors earlier this month, is about to find out. The five-year-old company, co-founded…

Academics Affirm Influence of Katherine Mansfield

Two UK academics from Edge Hill University in Lancashire have taken over editorship of the respected Tinakori: Katherine Mansfield Society Critical Journal, and are hoping to draw further attention to Mansfield’s often overlooked importance…

John Reid a Cricket Player of Uncontested Standing

“ John Reid, who has died aged 92, was in large part responsible for establishing New Zealand as a respected force in world cricket. A superb all-rounder who was the captain and mainstay of…

Berlin Museum Returns Toi Moko to New Zealand

With a ceremony and prayers, Berlin’s ethnological museum has marked the official repatriation of two Toi Moko, or tattooed Māori heads, to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, Deutsche Welle…

Morrinsville’s World Famous Takeaway Worker

It’s Friday night in the small town of Morrinsville and a handful of locals are waiting at the Golden Kiwi on the main street for a greasy parcel of fish and chips, Julia Hollingsworth…

Steve Martin Awards Catherine Browness Banjo Prize

Marton-born banjo player Catherine “BB” Browness is one of five recipients of the 2020 Steve Martin Banjo Prize. Browness, who plays with the bluegrass band Mile Twelve, shared in the US$50,000 prize, which…

King of Soul Max Merritt Will Be Greatly Missed

Christchurch-born Max Merritt, the ARIA Hall of Fame inductee best known for his soulful songs “Slippin’ Away” and “Hey, Western Union Man”, has died in Los Angeles. He was 79. Merritt made his mark when…

Georgia Fowler Modelling From the Couch

Vogue magazine recently caught up with four Fashion Week regulars, including New Zealand model Georgia Fowler, 28, to see how they handled the shift from real-world runway to virtual. Fowler has been doing fashion week…

Global Media Outlets React to Jacinda Ardern’s Win

Jacinda Ardern will serve a second term as New Zealand prime minister following Labour’s landslide victory in an election on 17 October, which delivered a major shift towards progressive parties, Jamie Smith reports for…

Climate Change Graphics Made Simple by John Lang

New Zealander John Lang has just finished an unenviable task: taking a jargon-packed, number-heavy report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and turning it into a graphic the average person might read,…

At Home With Teen Producer Jawsh 685

Created by American Jason Derulo using Aucklander Joshua Stylah’s instrumental “Laxed (Siren Beat)”, the track “Savage Love” has topped the charts in the UK, New Zealand and Australia, surpassed 1.1 billion streams and was…

Security Company Gallagher to Expand in UK and EU

Work is underway on the construction of a European HQ for New Zealand-based security giant Gallagher, Rachel Covill reports for UK media site, The Business Desk. Gallagher, a leading manufacturer in security and agricultural…

“Indigenous knowledge central to Aotearoa”: artist Shannon Te Ao discusses new video work in Canada

Despite experiencing setbacks caused by COVID-19, Wellington-based artist Shannon Te Ao is having a busy year, presenting new video work in two Canadian locations during 2020, and marking his first solo museum exhibitions in…

Allbirds Bets on Physical Stores Despite Pandemic

Allbirds, the wool shoe brand that closed a $100m fundraising round this week, is backing bricks-and-mortar stores in spite of the pandemic, according to Financial Times journalist Jonathan Moules. Moules writes that the new…

Len Lye Inspires Belgian Designer Dries Van Noten

Antwerp designer Dries Van Noten’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection was partly inspired by New Zealand-born filmmaker and artist, Len Lye. Van Noten was struck by the inventiveness of Lye’s oeuvre, UK-based AnOther editor-in-chief Susannah Frankel…

UFC Superstar Israel Adesanya Makes It Look Easy

UFC 4 video game cover star Nigerian-New Zealander Israel Adesanya, 31, tweets “what EA curse?” after emphatic victory over Paulo Costa on Fight Island, Andrew Whitelaw writes in his South China Morning Post column,…

Dose & Co. Get the Kardashian Approval

Good American founder Khloé Kardashian has invested in Dose & Co., a New Zealand-based company that sells a variety of collagen products throughout New Zealand and Australia. Kardashian is joining the company as a…

New Zealand Passport Takes Top Spot

The Passport Index has named a new most powerful passport in the world, and it’s none other than: New Zealand. Stacey Leasca reports on how our passport allows travel to more countries than…

Attica’s Ben Shewry Flexes Other Creative Muscles

In Melbourne, coronavirus brought with it a challenge the scope and severity of which local restaurateurs have never seen before. With eateries collapsing around him, New Zealand chef and restaurateur Ben Shewry was forced…

Parris Goebel Dials in on Inclusion With Rihanna

Lockdown has been stultifying and depressing in its sludgy predictability for many of us – but for others, it has proved uniquely creatively fulfilling, according to British Vogue’s digital director Ellie Pithers. Take New…

Mathematician Vaughan Jones a Man Who Knew Knots

“In 1994, Gisborne-born mathematician Vaughan Jones walked on stage to address the Italian national academy in Rome’s Palazzo Corsini, lit a cigar and began to blow smoke rings. With a mischievous grin, he told…

Ahi’s Ben Bayly Inspired by Right Here

Ben Bayly, chef, television personality and owner of new Auckland CBD restaurant, Ahi is profiled in The CEO Magazine. The feature focuses on how Bayly, who has run establishments all over the world, is…

Auckland Student Aysha Hussan Aims High

At just 14, track athlete and netballer Aysha Hussan has already achieved so much, including as the New Zealand face on the Muslim Women in Sports Powerlist 2020, alongside 34 other women involved…

Mint Innovation Saves Valuable Metal from E-Waste

Our “throwaway” culture often means consumers are guilty of getting rid of old devices as soon as new ones come to the market, a habit that can have a significant effect on waste streams…

Jessica McCormack and Emilia Wickstead Join Forces

“Reality is bleak,” Jessica McCormack tells Financial Times fashion features editor Jessica Beresford, “so we all need some escapism, right?” The jewellery designer is huddled over a table laden with precious objects – elaborate earrings…

OECD Nominee Liddell Helms White House Transition Planning

Whoever wins the U.S. Presidential race – Trump or Biden – New Zealand-born Chris Liddell will be holding the keys to the front door of the White House in his role as head of…

PM Jacinda Ardern Runner Up in Prospect List

The votes have been counted and the results are in. UK magazine Prospect’s top 10 is full of practical-minded thinkers for the Covid-19 age – and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken…

Digital Human Creator Uneeq Shares Its Tricks

Auckland start-up UneeQ, that counts Salesforce’s former head of AI Richard Socher as an investor, has a new tool that aims to make building virtual humans to answer questions as easy as creating a…

Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan Proud of Roots

In an exclusive interview with Indian news magazine, The Week, Labour list MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan, 41, talks about how the New Zealand Government is handling the pandemic and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s chances of…

Roseanne Liang’s Shadow in the Cloud a Blast

“Imagine how Ripley of Alien would handle a Nightmare at 20,000 Feet-style gremlin attack. Sound wild? Roseanne Liang’s female empowerment thriller delivers on that premise.” Variety’s Peter Debruge reviews the New Zealand director’s film…

Search for Life on Venus Could Begin at Rocket Lab

New Zealand-founded company Rocket Lab may be able to send a small spacecraft to probe the clouds of Venus long before NASA or other space agencies are able to do so, industry journalist Jonathan…

Queenstown Looks to Alternative Revenue

As the Covid-19 pandemic closes borders and grounds aircraft around the world, iconic destinations from Kyoto to Amsterdam are addressing the new reality of fewer visitors and looking for ways to reset their local…

Underplayed Doco Stacey’s Lee’s Homage to Women

Electronic music documentary Underplayed is the feature debut of New Zealand-born director Stacey Lee, who has been shortlisted for the Cannes Young Directors Award. “Filmed through a deeply intersectional feminist lens, Underplayed highlights not…

TikTok Opens up a New Music World for Jawsh 685

TikTok has only been part of our lives for two years, but it’s already had a massive impact on the music business, the BBC reports. South Auckland producer Joshua Nanai, 17, better known as…

Savage is a Moving Street-Gang Saga

“A pulse of vulnerability beats at the heart of Sam Kelly’s outwardly imposing but unexpectedly touching debut feature, Savage,” Phil Hoad writes in a review of the film for The Guardian. The film has…

Inside Anna Paquin’s LA Driftwood Home

The story of New Zealander Anna Paquin and husband American Stephen Moyer’s Venice Beach home is one of ultimate artistic license. With their selections of architect, interior designer, and landscape designer over the course…

How the Iraq Uprising Inspired Singer Yasamin

Three months before the start of Iraq’s October protests last year, almost 10,000 miles away in Auckland, “artivist” Yasamin began binge-watching an Iraqi YouTube political satire show. It would open her eyes to a country…

Max Gimblett Shows Juggernaut in San Francisco

San Francisco’s prestigious Hosfelt Gallery presents a solo exhibition of work by the esteemed 84 year-old painter, calligrapher, and Rinzai Zen monk Max Gimblett. The exhibition, entitled juggernaut, opens September 8, 2020 and…

Wheel Of Time Star Zöe Robins Profiled

Amazon Prime’s epic adaptation of The Wheel Of Time is based in an alternate world where magic exists, but only certain women are permitted to use it. One of those women, Nynaeve, is played…

New Zealand a food producer of global scale

New Zealand’s credentials as a global food and meat producer are highlighted in an op-ed in leading U.S. trade publication The National Provisioner by Matt Luxton, Director of Sales, USA at Silver Fern…

Eco Challenge Racer Nathan Fa’avae Wins For NZ

Nelson-based adventure racer Nathan Fa’avae, 48, who led the New Zealand team on to win the World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, is profiled by entertainment news site, Screen Rant. For the World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji…

Chlöe Swarbrick Makes Fortune’s 40-Under-40 List

In a year of “monumental challenges and change”, Fortune magazine has released its 40 Under 40 lists for 2020, the Government and Politics list of which features Aucklander Chlöe Swarbrick alongside iHeartMedia’s Jalisa Washington-Price…

Staggering Potential of NZ’s Returning Diaspora

International strategist and insights specialist Aucklander Julia Arnott-Neenee, 27, is one of a number of high achievers “coming home at once”. The Spinoff’s managing editor Duncan Greive interviews the well-travelled Arnott-Neenee, amongst other New…