News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Keeping Bespoke Designs in the Wickstead Family

Keeping Bespoke Designs in the Wickstead Family

When New Zealand-born designer Emilia Wickstead’s mother and business partner, Angela Wickstead, quietly launched a bespoke linen company last year, it didn’t take long for it to catch on among the city’s most discerning…

Karaka Kitchen Makes Prestigious London Awards

Karaka Kitchen Makes Prestigious London Awards

A Karaka kitchen designed by Shane George is one of just two international entries to make the finals of the SBID International Design Awards in the KBB Design category. Winners…

New Zealanders Win at Good Design Awards Australia

New Zealanders Win at Good Design Awards Australia

Wellington-based design agency Chrometoaster have won the won the Good Design of the Year Award at the Good Design Awards Australia in Sydney with Game of…

Tom Hudson Showcases Rare Plants in Cornwall

Tom Hudson Showcases Rare Plants in Cornwall

The recent Rare Plant Fair at Tregrehan Garden in Cornwall is important for Britain’s horticultural heritage. The 8-hectare garden at Tregrehan is one of the finest in the country and is the home of…

Isaac Hindin-Miller Likes Alphabet City

Isaac Hindin-Miller Likes Alphabet City

New York resident, New Zealand-born DJ and influencer Isaac Hindin-Miller, of the Isaac Likes blog, has been a fixture in the fashion world for nearly a decade, working for top menswear brands and writing…

Resident’s Dark Matter Brightens Milan Design Week

Resident’s Dark Matter Brightens Milan Design Week

Auckland lighting and furniture design firm Resident has been exhibiting off-site at Milan Design Week since the company was established by Simon James and Scott Bridgens in 2011. This year,

Inside Cassandra Ellis’ Bright London Haven

Inside Cassandra Ellis’ Bright London Haven

Interior designer and author New Zealand-born Cassandra Ellis and her husband Ed Prichard, a branding creative director, live in a split-level, two-bedroom apartment in a converted school in Battersea, London. Inside, according to the…

Ulysses One of the Year’s Largest Yachts

Ulysses One of the Year’s Largest Yachts

The Graeme Hart-commissioned 107m megayacht Ulysses was one of the six largest yachts delivered in 2016, according to Business Insider. Built by Norwegian commercial shipyard Kleven as their first yacht, Ulysses has been referred to…

Cox London Carving a Life Force

Cox London Carving a Life Force

“In an industrial site in north London, behind an anonymous brick façade, lies an awe-inspiring emporium, with bronze foundry and workshop attached. This is the headquarters of Cox London, a husband-and-wife-led team of designer-makers…

Travelling Not so Light with Anouska Hempel

Travelling Not so Light with Anouska Hempel

New Zealand-born London socialite and former Bond Girl Anouska Hempel is also renowned for her sumptuous architectural interiors and eye for detail, according to the Telegraph. Having opened London’s first boutique hotel, Blakes in 1978,…

Kopupaka Reserve Wins World Landscape of the Year 2016

Kopupaka Reserve Wins World Landscape of the Year 2016

Kopupaka Reserve – “an Auckland wetlands reserve featuring “woven” timber structures has been named World Landscape of the Year 2016 at the World Architecture Festival,” writes Amy Frearson for Dezeen. The reserve, a…

WooJai Lee’s PaperBricks Objects of the Moment

WooJai Lee’s PaperBricks Objects of the Moment

Korean-New Zealander, designer WooJai Lee has given newspapers a second life transforming them into multifunctional blocks. PaperBricks are sturdy, but soft to the touch. Netherlands-based Lee turns discarded newspapers into a pulp, mixes…

Anouska Hempel Gives London Hotel a Sleek New Makeover

Anouska Hempel Gives London Hotel a Sleek New Makeover

“As one of the first classic boutique townhouse hotels in London, The Franklin has recently experienced an extraordinarily stylish revamp—and designed by none other than the Bond-Girl-turned hotelier/interior designer Anouska Hempel,” writes Hana Hong…

This Is the Castle That Dot Smith Built

This Is the Castle That Dot Smith Built

As a child New Zealander Dot Smith dreamed of living in a castle. Growing up on an isolated farm in the 1960s entertainment was scarce – so Dot read, and planned her escape. Five…

Charlie McCormick Restores English Country Garden

Charlie McCormick Restores English Country Garden

Why is it that the non-English – like New Zealand-born florist Charlie McCormick (pictured right) – do classic English so much better than we do? the Telegraph’s Sarah Raven asks. On Raven’s arrival at his…

At Home with Attica Owner and Chef Ben Shewry

At Home with Attica Owner and Chef Ben Shewry

The owner of internationally renowned Melbourne restaurant Attica, New Zealand-born chef Ben Shewry, 39, who commutes for more than three hours a day from his coastal home, says the long drive to work is…

Isaac Burrough Concept Catamaran a Luxury Statement

Isaac Burrough Concept Catamaran a Luxury Statement

New Zealand-born designer Isaac Burrough has inaugurated a new yacht design studio in Amsterdam with the release of a 60m sailing catamaran concept, featuring an infinity pool, a 12-person cinema and a glass-bottom jacuzzi. A…

Sandra Nunnerley’s Serene Upper East Side Apartment

Sandra Nunnerley’s Serene Upper East Side Apartment

When Wellington-born interior designer Sandra Nunnerley became aware of two apartments in an Upper East Side building by the legendary New York Beaux-Arts firm, she knew it was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. Nunnerley…

Kiwi Teen Creates Ball Gowns Using Rubbish Bags

Kiwi Teen Creates Ball Gowns Using Rubbish Bags

Pukekohe teen Havilah Koledoye has created elaborate ball gowns using plastic bags, as reported in The Daily Mail. Plastic “is quite durable, you can stretch it to anything, it doesn’t rip or tear…

Cheryl Boyd’s Stringybark Garden a Magical Surprise

Cheryl Boyd’s Stringybark Garden a Magical Surprise

New Zealand-born garden designer and horticulturist Cheryl Boyd’s Stringybark Cottage garden is one of eight private Australian gardens featured in Phaidon’s account of worldwide gardens, The Gardener’s Garden. Sydney Morning Herald garden columnist Robin Powell…

United Strangers Interiors March into Vegas Market

United Strangers Interiors March into Vegas Market

New Zealand designer Logan Komorowski took his United Strangers brand to the recent Winter Las Vegas Furniture Market; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiles Komorowski’s military aesthetic. In the 1940s, battleship gray and army green…

New Zealand’s Most Beautiful Pools

New Zealand’s Most Beautiful Pools

“New Zealand inspires all those, who want to get away from cold weather to have a nice break from everything,” according to the Austrian travel magazine tip-online. One way to do that is…

Scott Kelly Creates Flags for Star Wars Galaxy

Scott Kelly Creates Flags for Star Wars Galaxy

New Zealand-born Scott Kelly, an advertising art director based in London, has spent “way, way too long” designing flags for 103 planets in the Star Wars universe. Kelly has created flags for planets featured not…

Cassandra Ellis Welcomes the Return of the Quilt

Cassandra Ellis Welcomes the Return of the Quilt

With quilting growing in popularity and a new wave of designers exploring age old techniques in their work, the Telegraph looks at how the humble hand-stitched blanket is back in favour precisely because it…

Stephanie Liu Masks Pollution Beautifully

Stephanie Liu Masks Pollution Beautifully

New Zealand-born designer Stephanie Liu’s Lumoscura smog mask, recently on show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Fashion 4wrd exhibition, is combatting pollution “beautifully”, according to the Observer. Liu created the piece…

Thomas Pavitte Revives the Art of Dot-to-Dot

Thomas Pavitte Revives the Art of Dot-to-Dot

New Zealand-born designer Thomas Pavitte is taking a minimalist approach to the current craze for adult colouring books, requiring his readers to draw the images themselves and turning dot-to-dot drawing into an art form. Pavitte…

Amazing Grace – Designer Sandra Nunnerley

Amazing Grace – Designer Sandra Nunnerley

“Designer Sandra Nunnerley doesn’t decorate (or live) by rules, bringing a tasteful form-meets-function approach to her Upper East Side apartment”, writes Wendy Goodman for Departures Magazine. The furniture in her own home, a fifth-floor…

Lujo’s Free-Standing Hammock a Visual Masterpiece

Lujo’s Free-Standing Hammock a Visual Masterpiece

A free-standing hammock designed by New Zealand-based company Lujo features in the Dallas Morning News Home & Gardening section. Lujo, which designs and manufactures top-of-the-line lounge furniture, describes its free-standing hammock as “a functional sculpture…

Rowland Perry Transforming Skateboards into Kitchen Tools

Rowland Perry Transforming Skateboards into Kitchen Tools

As a child growing up in rural New Zealand, Rowland Perry always had the need for a blade. Now, the Sydney-based skater and designer is making his own, refashioning old skateboards into bespoke kitchen…

Anouska Hempel publishes a book on interior design

Anouska Hempel publishes a book on interior design

“Anouska Hempel” – the New Zealand interior designer’s book has been featured in New York Times Style Magazine.   Hempel’s style – an “elusive mixture of discipline and romance” changes course “from baroque homage to…

Oana Jones’ 3D Printed Record Player Worldwide Hit

Oana Jones’ 3D Printed Record Player Worldwide Hit

A working vinyl record player made with a 3D printer has gained Auckland animation tutor Oana Jones worldwide attention. Jones created the player for a competition run by American independent record label Ghostly International…

Yacht Designer Ron Holland Keeping an Eye on the Wind

Yacht Designer Ron Holland Keeping an Eye on the Wind

Ron Holland is the mega-yacht designer behind the world’s largest sloop, the M5. The former Aucklander, who lives in Vancouver, had the 60-million-euro vessel built in fibreglass at the Southampton, England yards of Vosper…

Sandra Nunnerly Making an Impact with Interior Design

Sandra Nunnerly Making an Impact with Interior Design

A favored interior designer among the New York City’s cocktail party set, New Zealand-born Sandra Nunnerley has brought her distinct eye and original aesthetic to projects as varied as Park…

Dana Finnigan’s Lovely Loos a First in the UK

Dana Finnigan’s Lovely Loos a First in the UK

New Zealand-born designer Dana Finnigan’s design company, which is based in Glasgow, prints “lovely loos”, wallpaper, fabrics and ceramics. Finnigan, 33, produces £2000 toilets and sinks with every inch covered in her own, bright…

3D Printing Sounds like the Future of Music

3D Printing Sounds like the Future of Music

This is music to the ears of instrumentalists and fans of 3D printing alike. New Zealander Professor Olaf Diegel, who teaches product development at Lund University in Sweden, along with a band of students…

Jeweller to the Stars Jessica McCormack Picks Her Favourite Haunts

Jeweller to the Stars Jessica McCormack Picks Her Favourite Haunts

Jessica McCormack is a New Zealand-born jeweller based in London. Among the fans of her hand-crafted, fine-diamond pieces are Carine Roitfeld and Rihanna. McCormack picks her favourite stores and eateries for the…

Ben Lewis a Finalist in Prestigious UK Interior Design Awards

Ben Lewis a Finalist in Prestigious UK Interior Design Awards

Ben Lewis, of family-owned furniture and design company Trenzseater (pictured right with father, Mark), was a finalist in the prestigious London-based Andrew Martin Interior Designer of the Year Award. Previous winners include British…

Designer Virginia Star Busmann Inspired by Dutch Aesthetics

Designer Virginia Star Busmann Inspired by Dutch Aesthetics

Formerly of Auckland, designer Virginia Star Busmann is the owner of Forestry at Home, a Netherlands-based woollen blanket producer, which sells plaid throws woven at a mill in Lithuania but made from…

Roy Stuart Shapes the World’s Most Expensive Surfboard

Roy Stuart Shapes the World’s Most Expensive Surfboard

New Zealand surfboard designer Roy Stuart has created the world’s most expensive surfboard. Priced at a cool $1.3 million, ‘The Rampant’ is painted with 23-karat gold and made from glossy timber said to…

Kiwi Jeweller Gets His Handles on Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Coach

Kiwi Jeweller Gets His Handles on Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Coach

The Queen took her first ride in the new Diamond Jubilee state coach yesterday, parts of which were Kiwi made. The coach’s first journey took the Queen to the State Opening of Parliament. The coach is…

Moaroom a Shining Presence in Parisian Furniture Market

Moaroom a Shining Presence in Parisian Furniture Market

New Zealand design “has a shining presence in the Parisian furniture market” with Roderick Fry’s  Moaroom, a store instrumental in the successful promotion of designers such as David Trubridge. Fry launched Moaroom in 2005 with…

New Zealand Designer among world’s best

New Zealand Designer among world’s best

New Zealand-born designer Veere Grenney is included on the 2014 Architectural Digest’s AD100 list as one of the world’s top architects and designers. With his interiors shaped by three fundamental qualities – harmony, clarity and…

Auckland Art Gallery World Building of the Year

Auckland Art Gallery World Building of the Year

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki has won the coveted World Building of the Year Award at the 2013 World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Singapore. Designed by Sydney-based Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp, in…

Kiwi’s Reach Kickstarter Goal in Seven Hours

Kiwi’s Reach Kickstarter Goal in Seven Hours

Two Kiwi entrepreneurs have managed to secure their $30,000 Kickstarter goal within seven hours, allowing their prototype travel bag to go into production. After completing a 17,000 mile journey across North America, Jimmy Hayes and…

Rothko Inspires Fashionable Understatement

Rothko Inspires Fashionable Understatement

Three residential designers who have mastered the style of “restraint … but not necessarily minimalism” – New Zealand-born Sandra Nunnerley, Canada’s Elizabeth Metcalfe and Suzanne Kasler of Atlanta – explain how they merge the…

Swiss Army Should Check out This Hybrid Design

Swiss Army Should Check out This Hybrid Design

Victoria University industrial design student Joe Levy, 20, has “managed to cram in functionality” with his SpoolStool, which serves as everything from a chair, to a foot rest, to a table, to a place…

NZ Home to World’s Largest Waterslide

NZ Home to World’s Largest Waterslide

New Zealanders Jimi Hunt and Dan Drupstee have built the world’s longest waterslide, writes The Daily Mail. Their slide, at 650 meters long, beat the previous record by nearly 440 meters! Two thousand people…

Letting in the Light

Letting in the Light

New Zealander, Huxley Somerville, 52, a managing director at Fitch Ratings in New York, bought a run-down Upper West Side brownstone apartment in 1994 and set about converting the space into “four separate living…

Not Just Any Caravan

Not Just Any Caravan

New Zealand architectural and interior design firm W2 have designed a fold-out luxury caravan “unlike anything we’ve come across before,” Gizmag’s Loz Blain writes. “The Romotow looks a bit like a high-tech…

Stylish Thrift in the Village

Stylish Thrift in the Village

New Zealand couple, freelance art director Miranda Dempster, 41, and Gus McKay, 45, a tailor for the fashion label Tocca, spent no more than US$3000 on renovating their 155-year-old West Village apartment. On a…

Made in New Zealand

Made in New Zealand

“Visiting New Zealand with my 1-year-old daughter, and with nephews at home in America, I became obsessed with finding them something actually made in the country,” Meg Nesterov writes for Gadling. “I was impressed…

Pristine Property For Sale

Pristine Property For Sale

A Queenstown “French-country-style” property on Franklin Road features in the Wall Street Journal’s ‘Open House’ section. Owners, American retired couple Gerald and Carolyne Johnson, are asking $4.5 million for the five-bedroom home. ‘It’s whistle-clean air, whistle-clean…

Future Garden Plans Bloom

Future Garden Plans Bloom

New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Canada Ottawa-based Andrew Needs writes for The Vancouver Sun about the upcoming Ellerslie International Flower Show held from 7 -11 March at North Hagley Park in Christchurch. “Leading designers are busy…

Reflecting Life Of The Beach

Reflecting Life Of The Beach

Piha’s Butler Beach House designed by Herbst Architects is the company’s “most ambitious project to date,” according to Monocle. “Herbst Architects is renowned in New Zealand for its signature remodeling of the classic Kiwi bach….

Canterbury Gardens Enchant

Canterbury Gardens Enchant

From the grand estate of Otahuna Lodge, which was built in 1895 as the home of parliamentarian and horticulturist Sir Heaton, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Julietta Jameson views the heritage gardens of the Canterbury region. “Americans…

Don’t Ask About the Price

Don’t Ask About the Price

Auckland yacht manufacturers Diverse Projects’ 31.5m boat Black Pearl headlines this year’s Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show in Queensland. The hull of the superyacht is modelled on a rare…