New Zealand in Vogue
New Zealand is known for its edgy fashion exports such as Kate Sylvester and Zambesi, but a retrospective exhibition on now at Te Papa reveals a lesser known secret: the land of the long…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Adventurous Disguise
New Zealand designer Karen Walker’s sunglasses line — her “newest collection rang from some seriously oversized, rounded mad-scientist-type specs to something that looks like a more stylized, larger pair of Wayfarers” —…
Holy Grail of Inspiration
Auckland-based online fashion diarist Marcella of Fashion Distraction tells trend-spotting site StyleCaster about her inspirations and icons, and gives advice to the would-be style blogger. StyleCaster reporter Kelly Mullins writes: “Coming across…
Raiding the Global Pantry
Martha Jeffries, producer/director of New Zealand-made food and travel series World Kitchen is a self-confessed foodie with wanderlust, who had a “very Hutt upbringing”, growing up in Pinehaven and attending Sacred Heart…
Challenging the Purists
Wine producers from New Zealand, the United States and France are switching from glass to plastic wine bottles, saying they are lighter, good for the environment and not bad for the wine. “We see…
New World Struts its Stuff
A selection of New Zealand reds were pitted against those from Bordeaux at a recent blindtasting in Hong Kong at Club Lusitano with a New Zealand bottle taking third place, ahead of a bottle…
On-the-Road Epicurean
Fat Freddy’s Drop keyboard player Dobie Blaze features in the Irish Times weekly feature “Booking the Cooks”, in which the Wellingtonian reveals his secret recipe for ravioli of abalone with sea urchin butter. “When…
Huffer on Ice
New Zealand fashion label Huffer and Absolut Vodka, a brand owned by spirits and wine company Pernod Ricard USA, are collaborating on a limited edition bottle featuring a contemporary silver map of…
Blue Rates Destiny
Waiheke Island’s Destiny Bay Vineyard 27 Magna Praemia has been awarded a rating of 98 out of 1 by top United States wine critic and editor-in-chief of The Tasting Panel magazine, Anthony Dias Blue…
Norwich Empire Expands
“New Zealand chef Chris Coubrough’s food empire has been growing faster than an asparagus stalk in May,” Norwich Evening News Sarah Brealey writes in a review of Coubrough’s Norfolk gastropub the King’s…
Roadside Mussels the Best
Green-lipped mussels, or Perna canaliculus are indigenous and exclusive to New Zealand, and they’re a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, The Australian’s Susan Hurley writes. The molluscs are almost lurid, with fluorescent green stripes…
Tasting Twits
Marlborough vineyard Brancott Estate is offering the winner of a Twitter contest two free airline tickets to New Zealand, inviting Tweeps to provide ‘tasting notes’ on one of their wines in condensed,…
Board Made Bespoke
Wellington-based tailoring firm Working Style will make 1 bespoke suits for the management team of the International Rugby Board this year after winning a six-figure contract normally reserved for European companies….
Top Chef to Open Kiwiana
In August, New Zealander and Top Chef season 4 survivor Mark Simmons, is planning to open Kiwiana in New York on Union Street. The restaurant will feature lamb and seafood, both of which New…
Pinot Vines Abound In Otago
“Like a new immigrant struggling for acceptance, pinot noir faced dirty looks and derisive whispers when the grape arrived on the southern tip of New Zealand in the mid-198s,” The Globe and…
Tales From the Kitchen
New Zealand-raised chef Anna Hansen tells The Independent how she came to meet the chef behind London’s St John Bar and Restaurant, Fergus Henderson. Hansen came to the UK in 1992 and got a…
Taste the Santa Rosa plums
The 27 Mountford ‘Liaison’ Pinot Noir is the Los Angeles Times’ ‘Wine of the Week’. “Elegant and smooth, this New World Pinot carries the taste of Santa Rosa plums and sweet Asian…
Strike a Pose
Fresh on the fashion scene is 17-year-old New Zealander Emily Baker — “undisputedly, this season’s top new face” — featured in NYMag.com’s The Cut blog. This rising star made her debut on the…
Back to Biological Basics
“At Seresin Estate, a winery owned by New Zealand cinematographer Michael Seresin known for such films as Midnight Express and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the past blurs with the…
Girlfriends in Sydney
A gallery of the Stolen Girlfriend’s Club show at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week features on Vogue Australia’s website. The label collaborated with Wellington artist Karl Maughan using his paintings of gardens, bright…
Te Kairanga Sold to American
Martinborough’s Te Kairanga Wines, renowned for its pinot noir, has been purchased by American businessman Bill Foley. Te Kairanga is the largest holder of vineyard land in the Martinborough region. The price…
Sans Guide in Wine Country
“I’ve travelled to New Zealand about a dozen times from the US and one of my favourite areas is Marlborough, aka wine country (natch), which is found on the north part of…
Love Letter to Outsiders
New Zealand fashion label Lonely Hearts’ designer and co-founder Helene Morris is interviewed in the May issue of Australian magazine Frankie about their new collection ‘Little Bandits’ — “a love letter to outsiders.” “We…
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…
Indefatigable Portable Style
The contents of New Zealand designer Karen Walker’s handbag are perused in NBC New York’s weekly ‘Purse Purge’ feature. Walker is “one of few fashion folks creating clothing in two time zones…
Interior Feelings of Happiness
The Auckland home of New Zealand fashion designer Karen Walker she shares with her husband Mikhail Gherman, features this month on the American fashion site StyleCaster. “ known for her sweet, quirky ready-to-wear…
Zumwohl Means Medals
Upper Hutt-based Aotearoa Distillers has won a gold and silver medal for its Zumwohl schnapps at the World Spirits competition in San Francisco. German-born founder Ulf Huhrer said a trip home played a part…
Life of the Party
New Zealand caterer Margot Henderson (standing) is profiled in the Spring/Summer issue of The Gentlewoman, a new British biannual style magazine. The restaurant founded by Henderson is called the Rochelle Canteen. It’s set in…
Brooklyn’s NZ Pie Man
New Zealander Gareth Hughes owns the Dub Pie Shop, in New York, an Antipodean oasis, where lattes come second on the menu to flat whites, good old Kiwi meat pies fill the pie warmer…
Celebrities Love Taylor
“The fashion event of the week was definitely the celebration of designer Rebecca Taylor’s second boutique in New York’s Meatpacking District,” according to the Examiner’s Shea Peters. “Despite rain, snow, sleet, and slush celebs…
Focus on Food
The Gascoigne Associates-designed Japanese restaurant Cocoro in Auckland features on the World Interior Design Network site. “The interior décor features large squares of woven charcoal and chocolate carpet that resemble subtle tatami-style matting. All…
Delicate Design Hangs in Berlin
New Zealand-born designer and ceramicist Jeremy Cole’s porcelain Aloe Blossom suspension lamp hangs in the living room of German writer and producer Peter Schlesselmann’s one-bedroom flat in Berlin’s Tiergarten. The lamp has…
Keeping it Bright and Light
New Zealander Kirsten Cameron and Canadian partner Manuelle Langlois’ Montreal apartment features in The Vancouver Sun’s weekly series ‘Shelter’. The “self-confessed mess-makers” take reporter Laurel Baker on a tour. “I like to have the…
Me’a Kai Beats Usual Suspects
“You could call it the gastronomic upset of the night,” The Independent said. “New Zealand-born chef Robert Oliver beat out some formidable competition to land the title of best cookbook, which was announced last…
Maritime Vines
“As land masses go, New Zealand is the youngest country on Earth, having been around for about three million years,” Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson writes for an article in the Winnipeg Free Press. “Averaging around 12km…
Jerry Hall-Inspired
New Zealand-born designer Rebecca Taylor, who is celebrating her label’s 15th year, is collaborating with Citizens of Humanity jeans and Porselli shoes on special capsule collections and opening her second New York store in…
Celebrating Chardonnay
“We hardly ever talk about New Zealand chardonnay yet a decade ago it was the country’s most widely planted grape,” the Telegraph’s Victoria Moore writes. “As recently as 21 there were 333 hectares of…
Culinary Samplings
New Zealander Sam McFarren has lived in Brentwood, Tennessee for the past four years; she is profiled by the local newspaper The Tennessean in an article in which she talks about the differences between…
Complex Notes Cast
“Complexity — The Fine Wines of New Zealand”, a webcast wine tasting project which was launched by 21 boutique wineries last year in Denver, Colorado, was held again on Waitangi Day in Chicago in…
Getting Noticed in NY
Matamata’s Emily Baker and Palmerston North’s Jessica Clarke took to the catwalks at New York Fashion Week recently with Baker named one of the top 1 newcomers of the season by online fashion bible…
Gastronomic Benchmark
New Zealanders are pushing culinary boundaries at this year’s Hokitika Wildfoods Festival serving up shots of horse semen to iron-stomached food lovers. The equine delicacy will be on the menu at the annual festival…
Whitebait and Wine
The Noosa News New Zealand Wine Festival will be held in Noosa on February 25-27 and will include a seven-course degustation menu matching two New Zealand wines to each of the courses. Although Noosa…
Stress-free Cooking
New Zealand cook Annabel Langbein’s television series Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook is now screening on UKTV’s Good Food Channel. The series of 13 episodes has already been sold into 73 markets. “I…
Sign of Intelligent Life
The New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative, which is now a decade old, reports that of the seven billion wine bottles sealed worldwide each year, the number using screwcaps has grown from an estimated…
Burry’s Glorious Gaudi
Melbourne-based Mark Burry, executive architect and researcher on the Temple Sagrada Família project in Barcelona, “is lost for words to describe how he felt at the consecration by Pope Benedict XVI” in November 2010….
Oh For a Lamington
“The use of fresh and organic produce is what defines modern New Zealand cuisine, and it is this feature that chef Clinton Cooper believes will draw health-conscious Indians towards it,” Shweta Mehta writes for…
Wine About the Bay
There’s more to New Zealand wine than Marlborough, and much of it is within an hour of New Zealand’s major cities jaunted reporter Eric Rosen discovers on a “whirlwind field trip” of the Hawkes…
Musical Fashion
Fashion designers Trelise Cooper and Karen Walker are among a wave of labels turning their hand to costume design in 2011. Cooper has created costumes for the Victorian Opera and NBR New Zealand Opera’s…
Organic targets set
Twenty per cent of vineyards in New Zealand will be farmed organically or biodynamically by 22, according to a new target set by Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (OWNZ). “By 22, even if we only…
Designer sale in US
New Zealand-born fashion designer Rebecca Taylor has sold her label to American apparel company Kelwood. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Rebecca Taylor was founded in 1996 by Taylor and her business partner,…
London’s NZ treasure
Friends Peter Gordon, New Zealand chef, 47, and Briton Tim Lott, acclaimed writer, 54, are interviewed in The Independent on Sunday about how they met, their differences and Gordon’s tartan. “It was around the…
Stretching Out on High
“In what is being hailed as the most important development in air travel for decades,” Air New Zealand has taken delivery of the world’s first passenger plane with a redesigned interior, allowing economy class…
Polished Parisian Finish
A simple New Zealand-designed plastic-clip system — originally made for superyachts — held together a recent Parisian exhibition celebrating the 125th anniversary of Italian fashion brand Bvlgari. The fifteen 8.5m-high pyramids constructed at the…
Lester’s mini Mini
Retired Napier mechanic Lester Atherfold, 67, has transformed his 1964 Mini 85 into an even mini-er Mini trimming the 1ft long British classic car to a mere 7ft 1ins. Atherfold sliced 2ft from the…
Seven the song bird
Auckland model, the “more-gorgeous-than-ever” Zippora Seven, 18, graces Australian designer Jessie Hill’s SS1/11 look book, the collection taking the title Song Bird 7. She “features with heavy eye makeup and messy waves.” Seven is…
Tamarillo collaboration
Auckland-based brewery Epic featured in a December Discovery Channel episode of the Brew Masters series which showcased the brewing of a pilot and production batch of their latest beer Portamarillo — a collaboration…
