Rob Tennent’s Ode to Male Friendship and Summer
Summer in New Zealand can be a special kind of magic; the days of long ocean swims, covered in sand and sea salt and fingers dripping with fish and chip grease. It’s a feeling…
Blog Archives
Margot Henderson’s Fantasy Dinner Fit for Queens
In a column about her fantasy dinner for the Financial Times “pioneering New Zealand chef [Margot Henderson invites ‘four beauties’ to dine at her favourite Paris restaurant. Dress code: no corsets.” “I’m inviting Sarah Lucas,…
Dr Jane Goodall Endorses Brand Emma Lewisham
New Zealand-founded skincare brand Emma Lewisham and Jane Goodall have teamed up to take a stand against beauty waste, Jessica Ourisman reports for Harper’s Bazaar. The eponymously named luxury green beauty brand founded by Emma…
Lorde’s Album in Te Reo Reflects Us down Here
As an accompaniment to her latest work, Lorde has taken a different kind of leap: In homage to the history and landscape Aotearoa, she recorded a set of songs in Te reo Māori. Celeste…
Director Jessica Hobbs Wins Emmy for The Crown
At the recent International Emmy Awards, held in New York, Christchurch-born director Jessica Hobbs won for best directing of a drama series, for her work on The Crown. Eva Corlett reports on the win…
Intelligent Investors Should Look to LanzaTech
“LanzaTech, a wholly innovative and unique company originally hailing from New Zealand and now based in Skokie, Illinois, is using a combination of cutting-edge genetic engineering, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, and innovations in mechanical and…
Webtoon Creator Rachel Smythe Busy and Paid
When graphic design graduate, Rachel Smythe, 35, tried to get a foot in the door of New Zealand’s creative industry in 2008, she was rejected at every turn. But in 2016, the BBC’s Mary-Ann…
World-First Biodegradable Shoe the Orba Released
New Zealand’s first street sneaker specifically designed to biodegrade, the Orba Ghost, which has just been launched, is made almost entirely of natural materials, Kāpiti News reporter Rosalie Willis write. The shoe formula is…
New Zealanders Overseas Talk Being Behind Borders
When Jacinda Ardern closed New Zealand’s borders, chasing a zero-Covid policy, many New Zealanders were effectively locked out of their own country, Molly Codyre writes, having interviewed “those left behind” for an article published in the…
Hairy Maclary a New Zealander with Scottish Roots
Despite being one of Scotland’s most iconic children’s books, it has been revealed to the Scots that Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy is actually from New Zealand, Lisa Hodge reports for Edinburgh Live. “The beloved…
John Edwards Named UK’s Information Commissioner
British MPs have approved New Zealander John Edwards as next Information Commissioner for the UK, Jamie Harris reports for the Evening Standard. Edwards faced questions from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee early in…
Berlin-Based Poet Hinemoana Baker on Connections
Ahead of her recent reading at Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin (ILB), mould-breaking poet Hinemoana Baker talked English-language magazine Exberliner through her new book, the New Zealand-Berlin connection and why Germans should stop doing the haka. Christchurch-born…
Growing Wave of NZ Firms Set up Shop in Colorado
More than two dozen New Zealand firms, many start-ups, have set up shop in the Colorado cities of Denver and Boulder in recent years, making the region a launching pad for their American ambitions,…
Long-Legged Penguin Fossils Add to Rich Record
The discovery of a complete fossilised ancient giant penguin skeleton in the upper Kawhia Harbour, Waikato is helping scientists fill in some gaps in natural history, Sofia Quaglia reports for The Guardian. Scientists have concluded…
France-Based Susan Alemann off to Drive the Sahara
New Zealander Susan Alemann and Briton Helen Tait Wright, both in their fifties, are competing in an all-women off-road car rally taking place in the Sahara Desert, Morocco, English-language French news site, The Connexion…
Jessica McCormack’s Diamonds Shine at Met Gala
American actor Zoë Kravitz is a master of the bejewelled bralette, according to British Vogue journalist Alice Newbold. Her Met Gala 2021 moment was a riff on these looks, only with more diamonds with…
Giant of Cinema Jane Campion Wins in Venice
New Zealand’s Jane Campion has “underlined her status as one of the leading film-makers of her generation, taking home the best director trophy at the Venice Film Festival”, AFP reports. The Power of the Dog,…
RBNZ Turning Heads Around the Globe
“New Zealand is tiny by economic standards, but it’s a giant in central banking circles,” Forbes senior contributor William Pesek writes. “While working in Washington in the mid-to-late 1990s, I was struck by how…
Fashion Store Owner Jan Patu Promotes the Plunge
The owner of a fashion boutique in Australia’s biggest outback city, Kalgoorlie, New Zealander Jan Patu has urged people dreaming of starting their own business to take the plunge, saying it is worth the…
Billy Apple® a Transformative Pop Artist
Born in Auckland, Barrie George Bates, aka Billy Apple, was “a pioneer in the conceptual art movement whose influence spanned art scenes in London, New York, and New Zealand”. Apple died on 5 September…
Anita Chhiba Championing S Asian Cool
In recent years, there has been a rise in Instagram accounts designed to uplift and inspire marginalised communities, and through these online platforms, such as Diet Paratha, British Vogue’s Parveen Narowalia is starting to…
Behind the Blissed-Out Comeback of Lorde
With this year’s release of her third studio album, Solar Power, pop star Lorde, 24, lights up the cover of the October issue of US Vogue, in nothing but a Schiaparelli breastplate. Grammy winner Lorde, who…
ABs Top Rankings with Win over Pumas
New Zealand snatched South Africa’s world No 1 ranking and placed one hand on the Rugby Championship trophy after subjecting Argentina to a second successive heavy defeat in Brisbane, Reuters reported in an article…
Jane Campion Returns to Film with Locally-Shot Western The Power of the Dog
The Power of the Dog marks a homecoming for Wellington-born Oscar winner Jane Campion – with a career-first twist, David Canfield reports for Vanity Fair. Campion’s last feature was the 2009 romantic drama Bright Star; she…
Koru Kids CEO Says UK Childcare Needs Rethink
Women have borne the brunt of the pandemic both at work and home. Fact. But now, with spiralling childcare costs and lack of effective government support for childcare services, parents and carers are under…
Auckland Creatives Give Condé Nast a City Tour
Auckland-based designer Lillie Toogood and husband Dirk Paetzold are helping shape the story of New Zealand now for an international audience. The pair were recently interviewed by Condé Nast Traveler for a column called,…
Jordan Bartlett’s YA Fantasy Novel Cover Released
The cover of New Zealand-born author Jordan Bartlett’s young adult fantasy novel, Contest of Queens, has been revealed, Elise Dumpleton reports for entertainment site, The Nerd Daily. Bartlett, a speech language pathologist and certified…
Tokyo Paralympians Return Victorious
New Zealand’s Paralympians have returned from Tokyo with a medal count of 12, including six gold. It was the athletics and swimming show for New Zealand, with all of the medals coming from those…
Squash Player Paul Coll Wins Historic British Title
New Zealand’s Paul Coll, 29, is the Allam British Open champion 2021 producing a formidable performance to come from one game down and get his hands on the iconic trophy, the PSA World Tour…
Rose Matafeo Wants More Diversity in Rom-Coms
While shooting Season 2 of Starstruck, London-based New Zealander Rose Matafeo, 29, spoke to Harper’s Bazaar about its origin story, her dream guests, and how the stereotypes of rom-coms could do with a shake-up. “I…
Commonwealth Games Chief Named as Katie Sadleir
New Zealander Katie Sadleir, currently general manager of women’s rugby at World Rugby, has been appointed the first female chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation, the BBC reports. Sadleir, 57, will play a leading…
Journalist Charlotte Bellis Questions Taliban
New Zealander Charlotte Bellis was the only female journalist at the Taliban’s first official press conference in Afghanistan last week and her bold question to the group of armed men who took over the…
Labour Giant Michael Cullen Committed to NZ
Sir Michael Cullen, Helen Clark’s deputy prime minister and the father of New Zealand superannuation, has died in Whakatāne aged 76, Ben McKay reports for a story published in The Canberra Times. Prime Minister Jacinda…
Lorde’s Latest Album Too Complex to Be Basic
“Ever since people started slinging around the word basic as an insult, delights as disparate as pumpkin-spice lattes, the music of Lizzo, and sunsets have gotten a bad rap. The diss refers to pleasure…
Meet Paralympic Cyclist and Adventurer Steve Bate
Having become the first person with visual impairment to scale El Capitan, New Zealand-born Steve Bate, 43, is no stranger to adventure. The Tokyo Paralympic Games are but one challenge on his horizon –…
“Genius” Katherine Mansfield’s “frantic creative flourishing” collected in ‘Strange Bliss’
“One of the genuine, if frequently under-recognised, geniuses of 20th-century literature, Katherine Mansfield wrote the majority of her short stories during a frantic creative flourishing between 1920 and 1922 while suffering from the tuberculosis…
Taika Waititi Behind Triumphant Reservation Dogs
Oscar-winning writer-director New Zealander Taika Waititi is co-creator of the “unforgettable (and caper-filled)” television series Reservation Dogs, a “portrait of a modern-day Native American community”, Inkoo Kang reports for The Washington Post. “From the pilot…
Is NZ the Best Place to Survive Global Collapse?
Two English researchers have found that New Zealand is best poised to stay up and running as climate change continues to wreak global havoc, Heather Murphy writes for The New York Times, but other…
Allbirds Puts a Label on Fashion’s Climate Impact
Allbirds’ sustainability lead Hana Kajimura talks to The Guardian’s Nadra Nittle about why the company, founded by New Zealander Tim Brown and American Joey Zwillinger, uses carbon labelling to raise consumer awareness about the…
Xena’s Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor Reunite
One of the most shipped couples in TV history, Xena and Gabrielle, are finally getting back together, Dominic Corry writes for Entertainment Weekly. New Zealander Lucy Lawless and American Renee O’Connor, who co-starred on…
Pianist Ben Wilcock’s Fond Edinburgh Connections
When Hamilton-born Ben Wilcock signed up for a Fringe run with New Zealand’s Indian Ink Theatre Company in 2003, he had no idea that Edinburgh would play a recurring role in his career as…
Fortress NZ Looks to Open Borders to Vaccinated
New Zealand, one of the last countries successfully pursuing a zero-tolerance approach to the novel coronavirus, has said it could open its borders for quarantine-free travel early next year. But only the vaccinated need…
Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck Living His Space Dream
Rocket Lab’s founder Invercargill-born Peter Beck talks to Al Jazeera about moon shots, deep space exploration and overcoming dream crushers. Beck, who dreamed of launching rockets ever since he was a child, is a major…
Northland and Christchurch on Greatest Places List
Northland and Christchurch both feature on Time magazine’s third annual list of the World’s Greatest Places, “and while it may not be possible to safely visit each place just yet, they’re…
Chunk of Ancient Supercontinent Found Under NZ
As the California heat blazed outside in the summer of 2018, Rose Turnbull sat in the cool confines of a windowless basement sorting through grains of fine sand. A geologist based at New Zealand’s…
Wool Plus Aid Plus Big Investors Equals Expansion
Early on in Lucas Smith’s researching, patenting and manufacturing of merino Wool+Aid bandages, Stuff’s Marta Steeman reports, a local lawyer told him there was no other product in the world like it. But the…
Brothers Ravenhall Swim Whirlpool with Whisky
Two New Zealand-born UK-based brothers, Alex and Nick Ravenhall, have just completed a crossing of the world’s third largest whirlpool, The Corryvreckan in Scotland, as part of a bid to raise awareness of the…
Connan Mockasin and His Dad Make an Album Together
“New Zealand psych rocker Connan Mockasin’s collaborative album with his dad, Ade, has bad jokes, stream-of-consciousness poetry, and an odd, undeniable appeal,” Pitchfork Raphael Helfand writes in a review of, It’s Just Wind. “It only…
New Zealand Olympians Triumph in Tokyo
New Zealand is basking in the glow of its greatest ever Olympic medal haul, departing Tokyo with 20 medals – seven gold, six silver and seven bronze, and a new champion, Lisa Carrington, who…
New Zealand Ships Covid Vaccines to Tokelau
Tokelau, one of the most inaccessible atolls in the world, has just received 12 precious boxes of vaccine delivered by the New Zealand Defence Force, Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson writes for The Guardian. Inside the boxes…
4-Day Week Spurs Productivity
In 2018, New Zealand company Perpetual Guardian gave each of its 230 employees a day off each week. After the eight-week trial, it reported a 20 per cent jump in productivity and made a…
Deep Dive into Peter Jackson’s Beatles Doco
“It’s the Beatles as none would ever see or hear them again – their last live performance as a group, 30 January 1969. It’s also the Beatles as none of us, 52 years on,…
Older New Zealanders Join Climate Change Fight
On his early morning bike rides to school, David Yockney would deliberately seek out the crunch and splash of the ice-hardened puddles. It was a winter joy he loved, and one he took for…
Mayonaize x Indian Collab Tattoo-Inspired
The first of three in an Indian x No Regrets collaboration, New Zealand-born Melbourne-based tattoo artist Mayonaize’s handiwork has come to life on the Indian Motorcycle Chief, Alex Strange reports for UK motorcycle website, Visordown. Known…
Super Choice NZ-Style Ice Cream Hits Boston
When American August Radbill visited New Zealand for the first time a few years ago, he became enamoured with our real fruit ice cream, “a simple, ultra-creamy style that swirls together a scoop of…
Pounamu Jade Aikman Wins Fulbright Award
Pounamu Jade Aikman, who finished his PhD on racism and police violence against Ngāi Tūhoe, is this year’s recipient of the Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Scholar Award and will spend five months at…
