News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Photographer Nicola Dove Shoots Iconic Bond Pic

Photographer Nicola Dove Shoots Iconic Bond Pic

Film stills photographer Nicola Dove, who hails from Nelson, has spent 20 years taking photos on sets. She’s photographed the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Liam Neeson, Dame Maggie Smith and Johnny Depp, Caroline…

You Can’t Stop Sonny Bill Williams From Shining

You Can’t Stop Sonny Bill Williams From Shining

A star in rugby union and league, and now a professional boxer, Auckland-born Bill Williams, 36, reveals his inner torments and tells The Guardian’s Donald McRae what drives him on. “I get pretty emotional talking about it,…

Auckland Chefs Shake Up the Pans

Auckland Chefs Shake Up the Pans

“Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland gets the glutton’s share of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most talented chefs,” Joanna Bates writes for the Australian Financial Review. “And in 2020, they rose to new culinary heights with a run…

Primer’s Anna Saunders Looks Beyond Profit to Cause

Primer’s Anna Saunders Looks Beyond Profit to Cause

Founded by former Marie Claire editors New Zealander Anna Saunders and Australian Felicity Robinson in 2019, self-funded publication Primer is the latest addition to the local crop of social enterprises – eco-friendly toilet paper…

New Zealanders Struggling to Find a Home

New Zealanders Struggling to Find a Home

New rules to curb investment took effect this month, but our Human Rights Commission says successive governments have failed us. Sasha Borissenko spoke to some New Zealanders about their experience of finding a home…

Jewellery by Jasmin Sparrow Eclectic and Sculptural

Jewellery by Jasmin Sparrow Eclectic and Sculptural

The lines between jewellery and accessories are blurred in the hands of New Zealand-based jeweller Jasmin Sparrow, who plays with materials and forms for romantic, vintage-inspired designs, Hannah Silver reports for Wallpaper magazine. The brand…

Billy Apple an Artist Who Was His Own Life’s Work

Billy Apple an Artist Who Was His Own Life’s Work

“Over his long, provocative career, the artist Billy Apple changed his name, registered it as a trademark, branded products with it, had his genome sequenced and, finally, arranged to have his cells…

Mothers of the Revolution Unexpectedly Gripping

Mothers of the Revolution Unexpectedly Gripping

The third feature from New Zealand-based filmmaker Briar March is the “gripping documentary” Mothers of the Revolution, which celebrates the women protesters of Greenham Common. Wendy Ide reviews the film for Screen Daily. “The British…

Variety’s Power of Women Issue Features Lorde

Variety’s Power of Women Issue Features Lorde

For Variety’s 2021 Power of Women issue, the magazine spoke with several women in the entertainment industry, including New Zealand pop singer Lorde, who are using their voices to benefit worthy causes. After grappling with…

Alien Weaponry Standing Up for Māori Culture

Alien Weaponry Standing Up for Māori Culture

The New Zealand metal band Alien Weaponry have gone global thanks to their forthright Māori-language songs, which confront colonial history and ongoing inequality, Matt Mills writes for a feature in The Guardian. Once named “the…

Could Additive Kowbucha Reduce Methane Emissions?

Could Additive Kowbucha Reduce Methane Emissions?

Agriculture is the largest anthropogenic source of this gas, accounting for about 40 per cent, leading innovators to offer new solutions to tackle its bovine source. “You’re seeing much more industry involvement,” director of…

Musician Kaylee Bell Lights up Times Square

Musician Kaylee Bell Lights up Times Square

New Zealand country pop artist Kaylee Bell burst into tears when she was told her face is the cover of a new global playlist, Stuff’s Esther Ashby-Coventry reports, with Bell’s image plastered on a giant…

Rob Tennent’s Ode to Male Friendship and Summer

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…

Margot Henderson’s Fantasy Dinner Fit for Queens

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

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

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

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…

Flatiron Triplex Balances Elegance with Comfort

Flatiron Triplex Balances Elegance with Comfort

Architect David Howell and interior designer Steffani Aarons have reimagined a Flatiron District penthouse for a young New York family, reports Pilar Viladas in Introspective, the magazine of the design marketplace 1stDibs. The apartment…

Intelligent Investors Should Look to LanzaTech

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

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…

Kinetic Façade Brings NZ Pavilion To Life At Expo 2020

Kinetic Façade Brings NZ Pavilion To Life At Expo 2020

“A pioneering feat of engineering and craftsmanship, the New Zealand pavilion’s innovative façade made from a unique architectural mesh called Kaynemaile pays homage to the Māori way of life,” according to a report in…

World-First Biodegradable Shoe the Orba Released

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

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

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

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

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

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,…

What is really in our wine?

What is really in our wine?

New research by Malborough Master of Wine Sophie Parker-Thomson “is likely to provoke considerable revision in winemaking practices and in how sulphites are perceived,” according to Jancis Robinson, famed wined writer for The…

Long-Legged Penguin Fossils Add to Rich Record

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

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…

You don’t need physics to appreciate Katherine Mansfield

You don’t need physics to appreciate Katherine Mansfield

In an entertainingly self-deprecating essay for Oxford University’s independent student newspaper Cherwell, Ben Jureidini apologies to the ghost of New Zealand short story master Katharine Mansfield for almost submitting a terribly pretentious theory about…

Jessica McCormack’s Diamonds Shine at Met Gala

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

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,…

Spectacular David Howell creation is “the best furnished in New York City”

Spectacular David Howell creation is “the best furnished in New York City”

A spectacular apartment designed by NZ-born, New York-based architect David Howell and his team at DHD Architecture + Interior Design has been featured on Bravo TV’s Million Dollar Listing New York. The 4,116…

RBNZ Turning Heads Around the Globe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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…

Aoraki Mt Cook Reveals Last Images of a Mountaineer

Aoraki Mt Cook Reveals Last Images of a Mountaineer

Two decades ago Richard Stiles escaped an avalanche on Aoraki Mount Cook, but friend Steve Robinson wasn’t so lucky. Now the mountain has given up some of its secrets, Tory Shepherd writes for The…

An Excerpt From After the Tampa by Abbas Nazari

An Excerpt From After the Tampa by Abbas Nazari

Fulbright winner Abbas Nazari was one of 433 refugees rescued by New Zealand from the Norwegian cargo ship, Tampa, in 2001 after leaving Indonesia in an unseaworthy boat with his Afghan family. Twenty years…

Squash Player Paul Coll Wins Historic British Title

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

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…

Vogue 25 List Includes Chef Margot Henderson

Vogue 25 List Includes Chef Margot Henderson

London-based New Zealander Margot Henderson is one of today’s “most lauded chefs”. She joins Vivian Westwood, the Duchess of Cambridge, Nicola Sturgeon, FKA Twigs, and others, on the annual Vogue 25, which celebrates the…

Andrew Dominik on 20 Years of Chopper

Andrew Dominik on 20 Years of Chopper

Few would be unfamiliar with Chopper – both the criminal, and the movie. The former is Mark Brandon Read, the notorious Australian gangster, bestselling author and serial shit-spinner, who committed many crimes and claimed…

Commonwealth Games Chief Named as Katie Sadleir

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

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

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

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

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 –…