Yen - Issue 82 2016

T HE FASHIO N I SSU E

MUSIC + ART + FASHION + HOME + TRAVEL

Yen Magazine The Fashion Issue

CONTENTS YEN CONTENTS

18

PAGE

4

Guest Artist Lisa Lapointe

22 Guest Photographer Molly Steele

32

34

Meet & Greet

Pop Quiz

36

44

To the Wild Horses

DIY

26 Copenhagen

70 Head in the Clouds

94 Komorebi

ON THE COVER Art Oriol Angrill Jordà

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84

106

Blonde

In the Shadows

WINTER 2016

WANDERER Designed in Melbourne.

Handmade globally. w w w.elkaccessories.com

Scar f $130, Chunky sweater $145, Silk skir t $169, Häl boot $210

YEN MASTHEAD

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6 EDITORIAL Editor Annie Sebel Art Director Emma Motion Deputy Editor Eleanor Robertson Editorial Assistant Liz Scarf Fashion Editor Nicki Colbran Market Editor Kaila Matthews Contributing Beauty Editor Isabella Schimid Guest Artist Lisa Lapointe Guest Photographer Molly Steele CONTRIBUTORS Words Louise Bossio Gigovic, Rebecca Douglas, Amy Henderson, Nina Karnikowski, Athina Mallis, Jacinta Moore, Jana Roose, Lucy Shanahan, Jo Stewart.

Photography Lauren Bamford, Lynden Foss, Joshua Heath, Hannah Rose Robinson, James Tolich, Ho Tran, Saskia Wilson.

ADVERTISING National Advertising Manager Julie Davidson 02 9901 6164, jdavidson@nextmedia.com.au Advertising Traffic Manager Alison Begg 02 9901 6346, abegg@nextmedia.com.au Advertising Production Coordinator Sinead McCracken smccracken@nextmedia.com.au Prepress Manager Jonathan Bishop Production Manager Peter Ryman Circulation Director Carole Jones Chief Executive Officer David Gardiner Commercial Director Bruce Duncan SUBSCRIPTIONS mymagazines.com.au 1300 361 146 or +61 2 9901 6111 Locked Bag 3355, St Leonards, NSW 1590

Level 6, Building A, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590 ART LISA LAPOINTE.

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Yen Magazine is published by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN: 128 805 970, Level 6, Building A, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 © 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed by Bluestar WEB Sydney, distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Gordon & Gotch. ISSN 1447-5340. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is at the owner’s risk and, while every care will be taken nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage. Privacy Policy: We value the integrity of your personal information. If you provide personal information through your participation in any competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of Yen, this will be used to provide the products or services that you have requested and to improve the content of our magazines. Your details may be provided to third parties who assist us in this purpose. In the event of organisations providing prizes or offers to our readers, we may pass your details on to them. From time to time, we may use the information you provide us to inform you of products, services and events our company has to offer. We may also give your information to other organisations which may use it to inform you about their products, services and events, unless you tell us not to do so. You are welcome to access the information that we hold about you by getting in touch with our privacy officer, who can be contacted at nextmedia, Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590.

YEN ED’S LETTER PAGE

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ED'S LETTER Fashion! Turn to the left Fashion! Turn to the right Oooh, fashion!

– David Bowie Now that we’ve got the right soundtrack, and images of Zoolander and Hansel’s walk- off floating around your mind, it’s time to introduce our fashion issue. A world and word that conjures up a kaleidoscope of images and opinions, we pull back the curtain and look at the many facets of the faaaaarshion crystal. We celebrate the creative minds, the art of design and get some tips and thoughts from insiders and outsiders.

We start with local heroes, The Social Outfit.

Born out of a desire to do and make good, we chat to founder Jackie Ruddock about her ethical fashion brand that celebrates creativity and diversity. The Social Outfit employs and trains people from refugee and new migrant communities and makes some pretty ace outfits to boot. We also focus on that sweet space where art and fashion collide, look at sci-fi fashion and go behind the scenes and talk to just a few of the faces on the style carousel – a blogger, model/entrepreneur, photographer, maker and store owners. And of course there are our own fashion shoots, ranging from cool blondes channeling Teddy girls to a dreamy seventies-inspired nature nymph and more.

Above 'To the Wild Horses', p36 Below 'Faces of Fashion', p60

Hope you enjoy!

Annie and the Yen team

ED'S FAVES

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Polly Rowan print, $68.71, etsy.com/shop/PollyRowan. The Future Kept bag, $37, thefuturekept.com. Need Supply Co. hanger, $150, needsupply.com.

Macon&Lesquoy radish brooch, $25, howkapow.com. Tiro Tiro sol necklace, $285, tirotiro.com. Elk wallet, $85, elkaccessories.com/au.

5 MAR – 31 JUL 2016 Principal Partner Major Partner

Supporters

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Federation Square

Media and Tourism Partners

ngv.vic.gov.au

Oicial Suppliers

L-R: Australia, Evening dress c. 1805; Flamingo Park, Wattle dress and hat 1978; Gavin Brown, Indian snakes and ladders outfit 1985; Magg, Evening outfit c. 1974; La Petite, Evening dress c. 1960; Katie Pye, The party 1980; Toni Maticevski, Dali goddess 2007; Bright & Hitchcocks, Day dress 1865–70. © Courtesy the fashion houses, designers and designers’ estates. Photo: Virginia Dowzer and Bronwyn Kidd.

YEN PEOPLE

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JAMES TOLICH

LUCY SHANAHAN

ATHINA MALLIS

DIANA MORRIS

Shot ’In the Shadows’, p106

Yen Intern

Yen Intern

Fashion Assistant ‘Komorebi’, p94

What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone?

Proposed to someone while they were taking a photo of me so the moment would last forever.

Someone told me their husband did that the day before I was planning to propose, so I copied his smooth moves (shh).

What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone?

I get this weird anxiety about romance; I always think it seems contrived or like I’m making it my mission to live my life as a romcom. Suffice to say I haven’t performed many romantic acts, but I try to make sure I always have Messina gelato on hand.

What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone?

I am definitely not romantic but probably doing the little things like cooking dinner or giving back rubs.

What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone?

Making breakfast in bed for my two best friends in Paris on Bastille Day while watching the old planes go by, and the soldiers march down the streets around the Musée d’Orsay.

What’s your most recent online discovery? Seamless in New York.

Not sure if it’s in Australia, I hope so. You can literally order from any food joint online and it makes the whole process very ‘seamless’ – I promise I’m not an ambassador.

What would you love to learn? I would love to learn how to fish so I can relate to my male friends, as I don’t like sports and drinking. But mainly so I can take my sons out on a Sunday afternoon and be a real hunter-gatherer.

What was the worst fashion decision you ever made?

Probably Gucci loafers with big Gs on them! I wore them to my school ball and out underage clubbing in Auckland... I’m so embarrassed but I have to be honest here, right?

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What’s your most recent online discovery? I recently downloaded the Longform app, which has features and podcasts covering everything from interviews with a New York Times reporter assigned the ISIS beat to Uzo Aduba telling us why we need more characters like ‘Crazy Eyes’.

What would you love to learn? I would love to learn about money – when to scrimp, how to save, and just exactly what happened on Wall St. in 2008. The Big Short was supposed to teach me all of these things, but I had a glass of wine or five and fell asleep. I have some work to do.

What was the worst fashion decision you ever made? The outfit I wore to Mardi Gras when I was 17. Lace gloves, a tulle skirt from Disneyland and an entire kohl eyeliner made me feel like I was ‘edgy’. ‘Rubbish bin from Dangerfield warehouse sale’ would’ve been a more accurate description.

What’s your most recent online discovery? Those Tasty videos on Buzzfeed where they film the recipe being prepared. I could watch those all day.

What would you love to learn?

Greek. My dad’s side is Greek so I should really get in touch with my Mediterranean roots, plus I love learning new languages.

What was the worst fashion decision you ever made? All of 2011, my Facebook albums are full of cringe-worthy outfits.

What’s your most recent online discovery? I absolutely love, love, love the brand For Love and Lemons on the Revolve Clothing website.

What would you love to learn?

I’d love to learn how to make the most amazing espresso martini.

What was the worst fashion decision you ever made? Getting the 2010 haircut of the moment, inspired by Abbey Lee Kershaw, the fringe and bob. I tried it out and it went terribly wrong for me.

N E W S

N E W

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flambo yance.’

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N E W S

YEN LETTERS

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LETTERS Dear Yen, Thank you! I am a junior doctor and this morning I finished a 14-hour night shift, the last of seven similar shifts. I left an exhausted, blubbering mess. Instead of going straight to bed I picked up a copy of Yen, went to a cafe and flipped through the pages with a smoothie. Difficult moments from my shift slowly left my mind, replaced by the beautiful images and inspirational stories that line the pages of your magazine.

When I did go to bed to catch up on sleep, I drifted off thinking of my real dream: to change careers, open a craft store and sell the cards I make. Thank you for helping calm my nerves and keep my dream alive. Watch this space!

LET TER OF THE ISSUE This issue’s winner will receive a $400 Rolla’s voucher. Aussie denim company Rolla’s makes ace jeans that focus on simple details, clean lines and a great fit. See their latest range at rollas.com.au.

Kath

Letter of the Issue

Email us at letters@yenmag.net or jot down your thoughts and post them

Dear Yen, My best friend and I are trying to save up for a long holiday in Europe. You are not helping. I promised myself that I would only buy things that are absolutely necessary in order to save, save, save – and this was going quite well until I saw your 81st issue at my local newsagency. How’s a girl supposed to resist a cover like that, Yen? It’s not fair really.

The artwork was practically flirting with me from where it sat on the shelf. So now you have become a necessity.

I especially loved your ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ article and your interview with Kate Shaw. In the words of Dorothy Parker, “You bring tales of fresh adventurings.”

Jess

To my Yen, My only regret in life is not picking you up sooner; you are my new best friend. I think the true reason I am so in love with you all boils down to my first meltdown of this year – school-related, of course. I was an utter mess, tears everywhere, as I sobbed to my mother about how I had no ideas for my art folio and the first criteria was due in a few days. I picked you up for the first time and the heavens graced me with your featured artist articles. Thank you for inspiring me when nothing else could.

Eugénie

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Dear Yen, I came across you one hot afternoon on my lunch break, looking around my newsagency for an interesting magazine to buy. Your cover art is what caught my eye; you were bright, bold and intriguing, so I purchased you.

I’ve got to say I’m impressed with the new Take It Outside

to: Yen Magazine Letters, Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW, 1590, Australia.

issue. I actually did take you outside and into my garden, discovering how peaceful it is to read outside. I don’t think I’ll read another magazine inside again, unless of course it’s raining. Your interesting stories and beautiful artworks compelled me to turn every page with appreciation, and before I knew it I had read you front to back. My favourite story of the issue was the one on Australian ghost towns like Betoota – I think it’s incredible that there are places like that where time just stands still. What I really want to say is that I look forward to finding Yen in my local newsagency, because you are officially an amazing magazine.

Chloe

Dear Yen, A few weeks ago I added Sarah K. Benning to my Instagram feed, after seeing her mentioned on a blog. As a knitter, it was exciting to see another skill perceived to be the domain of grannies being transformed into a modern art. Leafing through the pages of Take it Outside, I gave a little cry of joy at seeing Sarah’s work introduced to a broader audience.

Continuing through your pages, I was awestruck by the work of Kate Shaw, and instantly wished to pick up an embroidery needle and recreate her work in cotton. Knowing my skills would be lacking, I realised the next best thing would be for Sarah and Kate to join forces to create this beautiful piece. I already know where in my apartment I’ll put it.

Michelle

MY EVERYDAY BANKING PUTS

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Tumma is putting people before profit because we’re owned by our customers.

Change the world by changing where you bank. bankaust.com.au/change

mecu Limited ABN 21 087 651 607 AFSL 238431 trading as Bank Australia. Consider terms and conditions from Bank Australia before deciding whether to apply.

ECLECTIC HEART X Just because your passport hasn’t had a stamp in it for a long, long time, doesn’t mean your hands can’t have a holiday, care of some bohemian-inspired jewellery from Eclectic Heart. The Zora ring ($19) and Haven bracelet ($29) will transport you from aisle eight of Coles to the Grand Bazaar. Sourced from Istanbul, Turkey, they’re beautifully detailed and handmade pieces that will have you shouting, “The Price is Right, Larry!” See more at eclecticheart.com.au and @eclecticheartx.

YEN YEN HEARTS PAGE

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DU ZEN! If you’re like us, then everywhere you go, you leave a Hansel and Gretel-esque trail of yourself in the form of sunglasses, credit cards and hair elastics. It’s time to invest in some leather goods that will ensure you hold onto your belongings. Melbourne brand Du Zen! has your back with this beauty, $680. See the rest of the range at duzen.com.au.

ALPHABERTS

BILBOA

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If floating is your preferred mode of transport, look no further than Bilboa, the Australian label immortalising our dreamiest moments in fashion form. Locally sourced and made with love in Sydney, Bilboa is a collection of soft silhouettes and pastel hues. Lazy Sundays have found their perfect outfit accompaniment for toast eating and midday coffee drinking. See more at etsy.com/au/shop/thebilboaloft.

ECLECTIC HEART PHOTOS MYLES PRTICHARD.

Finally a legitimate excuse for a little bit of vanity: personalised pieces and initial posters by the clever team at Alphaberts, alphaberts.com.

They offer customised design – think posters, wallpaper, stationery – as well as a range of kid's prints perfect for presents. alphaberts.com.

YEN YEN HEARTS PAGE

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SMOKING SLIPPERS Your dreams of sitting in a rocking chair singing ‘Under the Sea’ while wearing a pair of lobster claw shoes can now become reality. And it’s all thanks to the new collection of Smoking Slippers by Soludos ($89.95).

Their embroidered slip-ons include creatures, summer fruits and a wink – for those who feel that even their feet need to flirt.

See them all at soludos.com.

200 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN FASHION Melbournites, nothing can prepare your inner fashionista for what’s coming to the National Gallery of Victoria. 200 years of Australian fashion is about to premiere, spanning every inch of fabric throughout the last two centuries (bypassing Barmah hats and the 1987 Logies, or at least we hope). On March 5 – July 31 at ngv.vic.gov.au.

THE PROVIDER STORE Well this certainly puts the old Vegemite jar and tea light combo to shame. The Providor Store is all class, baby. Store owner Tara Bennett admits to having a membership to the Japanese/ Scandinavian style fan club and even makes some of the items on offer. See more homeware pin-ups at providerstore.com.au.

FLAMINGO MOSCATO 2016 is the year of the flamingo – candle, cushion and giant inflatable pool toy alike.

We firmly believe an afternoon spritzer should be no different, and as far as we’re concerned if there’s a pink drink in our hand, summer’s not going anywhere. Jazz up your picnics at flamingomoscato.com. au and follow them @flamingomoscato.

SOÑADORA Don’t let your devotion to all things green falter.

Lack of space you cry? Think laterally and vertically, you fool. Sonadora’s range of sleek furniture and homegoods provides the answer with their Swiss Army knife of display ladders – perfect for plants, kitchenware, towels and more. sonadora.co.

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DINOSAUR DESIGNS Dinosaur Designs is entering its goth stage – all darker tones and monochromatic magic. But there’ll be no bad eyeliner or blaring screamo here; these smooth, lovely homewares are grown up, ready to sit next to a nice bottle of red on your dining table. Have a gaze at dinosaurdesigns.com.au.

YEN YEN HEARTS PAGE

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AMANDA TESTA Sure there's room for classics but what's more fun than a shell-shaped clutch? Nothin. Okay, maybe a gorilla or cobra clutch...

Amanda Testa makes those too. This girl is good! Made to order, they cost $560 and are available from amandatesta.com.au.

JAGGAR SHOES What’s the best part about autumn? Is it summer’s stickiness disappearing into a crisp breeze? The sound of leaves crunching under foot? Wrong. It’s the joy of changing up your wardrobe. If your shoes are currently held together with duct tape and prayers, don’t worry, Jaggar has got you covered. Find them at fashionbunker.com.

MARIMEKKO Marimekko’s Spring collection has arrived, featuring clean lines and bold-yet-unfussy patterns that give off ‘cool stranger leaning against a building’ vibes. Anyone with a bad case of the try-hards should visit marimekko.com to see how it’s done.

LOCAL SUPPLY Every time you sit on an expensive pair of sunnies, an angel gets its wings. Okay that’s not true, but we need something to soothe the pain, dammit. Local Supply sunnies are another good option: swish and stylish, but your eyeballs won’t pop out of your head when you see the price tag. Grab a (UV protective, sweatshop free) bargain like these for $79.95 from localsupply.com.

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BANK OF AUSTRALIA It might seem hard to believe that a bank would invest in social issues, protect endangered species or save the planet, but that’s exactly what Bank of Australia is trying to do. Help make a difference by banking with Bank of Australia and let your money do the talking at bankaust.com.au/change.

By New York Times Bestselling Author and founder of award-winning international adventure and travel company G Adventures and nonproit Planeterra Foundation.

YEN GUEST ARTIST PAGE

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LISA LAPOINTE You won’t look at colouring books the same way once you’ve seen what this artist does with pencils.

Do you come from a creative family? Not in the classic sense of art – there are actually no known artists on either side of my family. My father has a very creative mind in terms of business, so I definitely come from a creative thinking family.

really old and particularly beautiful – one is male and one is female. The position of their bodies is extraordinary, as you can get a sense of the feeling in their bodies as they are flying. They are a great symbol of the male and female energies.

What’s your favourite medium to work in? Pencil at the moment. I also get a great amount of satisfaction creating my totems which are predominantly paint and mixed media.

Give us an idea of the quantity of pencil shavings you deal with? I wish I had kept them all from the very beginning to really know. I accumulate big piles then throw them out. They smell good and are always prettier than one would expect, as they have a slice of colour on each one.

How did you develop your current style? It really came about by trying to do some work with no commercial value.

It's amazing what happens when you let go and stop trying to commercialise your art or ideas.

What’s a normal day like for you? Do you have any daily rituals? My life is a bit topsy-turvy at the moment as I have a seven month old. But my rituals consist of coffee, meditation, and I always like to begin and end the day with my favourite incense.

How long do your works take to complete? I've become a lot faster, but typically four to six weeks for the larger works which are roughly 150 x 110cm.

What’s your most prized possession? I bought a pair of timber flying Indian sculptures a few years ago. They are

YEN GUEST ARTIST PAGE

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What’s something you want to do, but haven’t gotten around to yet? It would have to be travel related. I'd like to see the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids in Egypt, the Grand Canyon... my list is long.

What do you think of the current trend for adult colouring books? I think it’s amazing really. I have always referred to my work as having a meditative quality to it and this is what they say about the colouring books. Meditation reduces anger, anxiety and stress and helps increase inner happiness, calmness and confidence. So for this to become a popular trend I think it’s extremely beneficial for society as a whole. lisalapointe.com.au and @lisalapointe.

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YEN GUEST ARTIST PAGE

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YEN GUEST ARTIST PAGE

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YEN GUEST PHOTO PAGE

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MOLLY STEELE Adventures and some one-on-one time with nature are what gets this photographer’s creative engine humming.

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Where do you live? What do you like about it? I live in a place called Beachwood Canyon in Los Angeles. I like it because it feels like a sanctuary where everything beyond my walls is paused when I’m home. In a way, I like LA in general for similar reasons. When I travel, I know that LA is still there and not changing much, and in that way I can rely on it. Plus, it’s surrounded by so much within a day’s drive.

If your life had a soundtrack, what would it be? I often feel like my life has a soundtrack, because I’m always listening to something, be it music or the wind.

The soundtrack would be somewhere between late '60s prog, Appalachian folk, some pre-blues of the Mississippi Delta sounds mixed in, any of the Reverberation podcast mixes, some dark and dreamy cinematic stuff, and grimy punk. Mostly old stuff. If I had to choose a single song as my soundtrack, it would be 'Jeune Flirt' by Alessandro Alessandroni.

Why do you love being out in the natural world? When I’m traveling or alone outside, I feel seen. I feel heard without speaking, understood without explanation, and connected to what feels most true to me.

Has there ever been a time you wished you had your camera with you? There are periods of my life when I wish I had been more interested in shooting, like when I was

young growing up in the swamp. Mostly, I find that it’s not that I wish I had a camera, but that I had to courage to take photos in all the moments I’ve felt compelled to.

What is a skill you would love to learn? Partnership, and to sail.

If you could give your teenage self a piece of advice, what would it be? Ignore men, stay in school, and stop listening to Rancid.

How do you pick yourself up when something is getting you down? When I’m really down, I go on a trip and get myself into some trouble. I feel like those are the times when I need to replace one intense feeling with another, and generally I produce my best work on these trips. When something is getting me down and I’m home, I listen to Vashti Bunyan’s Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind and read incessantly.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen on an adventure?

Just recently I watched a naked man dance to soul music around a couple of burros next to a hot spring at sunset.

What’s the last thing that made you mad? Being in love with someone that I can’t be with is pretty much consuming me entirely these days. Other than that, I ate a bad kiwi yesterday. Life is really hard out here.

What’s in your master plan for 2016? Travel further, dive deeper, put out a book, float down a river, set up a solo show, see my family, grow strawberries, and talk less. molly-steele.com and @moristeele.

PHOTO OF MOLLY PURIENNE.

How did you start taking photos? As my curiosities became more obscure and my atmosphere diversified, I wanted to figure out how to better communicate what I was seeing and feeling. By making mistakes and following my intuition, I was eventually able to do that through photography.

Chorus

Sol Sana boots, $219.95.

YEN UPFRONT FASHION

Ryder jumper, $169.

PAGE

26 Vanishing Elephant kimono, $160. Volcom knit, $70 (worn underneath).

Uniqlo scarf, $29.90.

ManiaMania bracelet, $295.

COPENHAGEN Take a page out of the Scandinavian rule book of cool.

Vanishing Elephant skirt, $180.

Holly Ryan x Harriet choker, $180.

Neuw jeans, $189.95.

Marimekko top, $295.

Le Specs sunglasses, $119.

Finders Keepers The Label shorts from BNKR, $139.95.

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Vanishing Elephant dress, $300.

Uniqlo jumper, $29.90 (worn underneath).

Elk scarf, $130.

Interval shirt from Glue Store, $99.

PHOTOS HO TRAN AND ISTOCK. CHORUS PHOTO SARAH PANNELL. FASHION KAILA MATTHEWS.

Interval top from Glue Store, $119.

20-21 MAY 2016 /

CARRIAGEWORKS

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Get ready for the fashion event of the season. Witness the latest collections from Australia’s leading designers straight from the #MBFWA runway. Be the first to see future trends, unlock beauty secrets, sit where they sat and experience fashion like a true insider.

ON SALE NOW

Camp Cove Swim, SS 15/16.

Stance socks, $25.

YEN UPFRONT FASHION PAGE

28 Zimmermann playsuit, $450.

Wrangler jacket, $139.95.

Lucy Folk bangle, $420 (each).

Karen Walker sunglasses, $329.

Pared sunglasses, $280.

NOW AND THEN Perfect for sitting curbside and laughing with friends.

Cream on Crown shirt, $35.

Topshop top, $89.95.

Status Anxiety wallet, $65.

Rolla's overalls, $179.95.

Ryder T-shirt, $89 (worn underneath).

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Miss Brown Vintage skirt, $50.

Missoni x Converse sneakers, $130.

Cream on Crown belt, $39.

Abrand T-shirt, $59.95.

PHOTOS HO TRAN, ISTOCK. CAMP COVE PHOTO BELLA KERSTENS. FASHION KAILA MATTHEWS.

Cream on Crown jeans, $49.

triplus® fineliner Go on a creative journey into a new world of colouring!

www.staedtler.com.au

Adidas x Jeremy Scott trainers, $220.

Cream on Crown sunglasses, $35.

YEN Topshop top, $99.95.

UPFRONT FASHION PAGE

30 Zara dress, $79.95.

Academy T-shirt, $49.95.

Boohoo pants, $30.

Furla bag, $749.

32.4 necklace, $279.

Abrand T-shirt, $59.95.

Zara shoes, $119.

THE INTERNET Think Brooklyn, think sweats, think beatbox, you got it.

Zara jacket, $89.95.

Cream on Crown cap, $32.

Nude Lucy jumper from Glue Store, $69.99.

Lonely Hearts track pants, $199.

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PHOTOS HO TRAN, STOCKSY.COM AND GETTY IMAGES. FASHION KAILA MATTHEWS.

Calvin Klein crop top, $49.95.

H U R R Y ! T H E A W A R D S C L O S E 2 0 M AY, 2 016

presented by

WIN OVER $30,000 WORTH OF PRIZES Get your skates on because the STAEDTLER Yen Female Art Awards are only open until 20 May, 2016. +HDG WR \HQPDJ QHW RQ 0D\ IRU WKH DQQRXQFHPHQW RI WKH ÀQDOLVWV

FIRST PRIZE

19 RUNNERS-UP

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Two-week solo exhibition at Gaffa

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$50 STAEDTLER art pack

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Inclusion in the group exhibition

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Inclusion in the group exhibition

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$500 STAEDTLER art pack

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Roadshow comedy DVD pack

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$500 ManiaMania jewellery voucher

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Two sets of Odd Pears socks

23 June - 4 July, 2016

23 June - 4 July, 2016

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$500 cash prize from Yen/nextmedia

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1 Kester Black nail polish

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QT Hotel Canberra 2-night art package

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1-year subscription to Yen

DQG ÁLJKWV

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$500 Gorman clothing voucher

PEOPLE’S CHOICE

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$500 Linen House homewares voucher

Vote for your favourite by heading

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$500 Harper Collins book bundle

to yenmag.net/artaward.

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$500 T2 tea pack

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$250 STAEDTLER art pack

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Inclusion in the group exhibition

)XMLÀOP FDPHUD SDFN •

23 June - 4 July, 2016

$500 Retro Print Revival lamp or planter voucher

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Roadshow comedy DVD pack

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$399 Reid Cycles Esprit bike

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Two sets of Odd Pears socks

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Roadshow comedy DVD pack

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1 Kester Black nail polish

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Two sets of Odd Pears socks

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1-year subscription to Yen

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$100 Kester Black nail polish pack

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1-year subscription to Yen and a double-page spread in the magazine

TO ENTER You must be female and aged between 18 - 35 years old. Head to yenmag.net/artaward to upload your artwork and see the IXOO 7 &V 7KH ÀUVW VXFFHVVIXO entrants win a STAEDTLER pack RI ÀQHOLQHUV DQG QRWHERRN valued at $25.

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ATELIER BINGO Forget the hobby farm, this creative team is making their own rural art paradise.

WORDS ELEANOR ROBERTSON

If you close your eyes right now and imagine your Happy Place – go on, we’ll wait – there’s a high chance you just pictured somewhere like the French countryside where artists Adéle Favreau and Maxime Prou live and work (for the small group that imagined a forest made of Twisties, we hear ya). Moving out bush used to be the exclusive preserve of the burnt-out and middle-aged, but these two young creatives are showing you don’t have to start a financially precarious hobby farm to make rural life work for you.

“We live in an old factory on the west coast near Nantes.

My uncle renovated the building, and when he showed it to us we fell completely in love. We decided to move away from Paris very quickly, so we could have a better life and more space,” says Prou, one half of the duo’s collaborative project Atelier Bingo. “Here it’s easier for us to focus and do what we really want to. We love waking up in the morning, drinking a coffee, and watching the horses run past.”

Living in the middle of nowhere with their dog, Donut, isn’t all rolling hills and wildlife. “One day one of the villagers visited and asked if we’d collaborate with him.

It turned out he wanted an Atelier Bingo tombstone.”

But fresh air and leg room have done wonders for the pair, judging by the following they’ve built for their bold, energetic screen prints, collages and digital illustrations.

“We love the magic and the quality of the print,” says Prou.

“It has enabled us to align with each other graphically. All our works are created with four hands and two brains.”

The duo’s distinctive style calls to mind the bright wooden building blocks you give to kids who are too young for Lego. The chunky colours work perfectly on notebooks, towels, ceramics, pillows, clocks – don’t be surprised if your housemate comes home with an Atelier Bingo tattoo one day soon. “We collaborate a lot, so we work in lots of mediums: textiles, stationery, decorations. It’s our own universe where we can work in a mix of art, illustration and design.” If this fast-paced, creative existence is country life, sign us up for a hay-stuffed mattress.

“This year we’re working on an exhibition in Paris, art for an album cover, a special edition screen-print and some design work for a music festival. Twenty-four hours is not enough for us.”

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atelier-bingo.fr. and @atelier_bingo.

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Iceland, horses, nighttime rides and being serenaded. Hannah Rose Robinson’s photographs are quite something.

PHOTOS HANNAH ROSE ROBINSON

What took you to Iceland? A majority of my personal work looks at relationships between humans and animals through different cultures. I have done work in Mongolia looking at the nomadic horse culture while riding across the eastern steppe. Last year after being selected for an Artist Residency with the The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists, I went to explore the idea of the Icelandic horse in the context of place, culture and mythology.

Icelandic horses are very unique; their bloodlines go back to the first Vikings when they arrived in Iceland.

No horses can enter Iceland, and once they leave they can't return. They are deeply ingrained in the culture and mythology of Iceland, which is a rich and fascinating case study from an anthropological perspective. There is a deep, undeniable connection between the Icelandic people, Icelandic horses and the wild Icelandic landscape.

What did you think you’d find there? I try never to take expectations with me anywhere, it stifles discovery.

What did you really find there? When you go to Iceland and get lost out in the remote wild places, and experience the strange emptiness and isolation, you come to understand the influence it has on the music and art you see come from the people there. It is hard not to be affected – it all makes more sense. They believe in fairies and hidden people and the hidden realm, even today. And when you are there, you can feel it. I have amazing contacts and connections there now; it will be an ongoing work for me.

What is it about animal/human connection that interests you? The exploration of animals and humans within a cultural context is something I wish to spend the rest of my life documenting. Our connection to each other is so intrinsic, and there are so many different avenues to explore within this realm. Analysing the reality, hyper-reality and perceived social nuances associated with animal/human relationships through real life narratives is something that

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I am just fascinated by. Especially when it hints towards influences of myth, symbolism and a connection to land, space, place.

Can you describe your favourite day in Iceland? Or were there any moments that stick out? I spent time with a group of incredible Icelandic horse people; we took 70 horses up into the mountains to bring them back to work after the winter, and to bring the people back to the mountains. It was a time of reconnection between nature, man and horse, played out in a truly breathtaking place.

The Icelandic people I got to know on this journey were all such incredible people. Their love of wild places and joy of living is truly infectious. I actually had my birthday when I was with them. They serenaded me with guitars and a saxophone multiple times; they made me three birthday cakes, also four special meals, and we rode five times that day. We did one ride at about 1.30am, which was so magical it was like a dream. Because the sun doesn't really set during the summer it was this strange sunset twilight; the sky was a fire of colours, a battalion of giant clouds reflecting the light and dancing around the mountains. It was something I will never forget.

Where you a horse-obsessed child? Absolutely, and nothing has changed. I can’t imagine a life without horses.

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Besides horses, what else do you turn your camera to?

I work as a commercial photographer, shooting mainly lifestyle, fashion and portraiture for a range of brands and magazines. I have some great shoots coming up this year.

I also have some collaborative works planned for 2016, working with incredible artists and designers, which fall into more of a fine art realm.

My personal work is mostly documentary photography.

Connecting with people, cultures and subcultures, telling their stories through pictures. I definitely have a thing for nomads. I am drawn to the idea of a nomadic life, moving around, making no permanent roots, the feeling of freedom associated with that lifestyle. One of my biggest fears is being caged in, so the exploration of the nomadic lifestyle is something I am continually drawn to. For me, documentary photography is about telling someone’s story, and I like getting myself into a world I would not normally be in. It has helped me grow as a person and a photographer. I have ongoing projects that look at homeless subcultures, and another that explores senses of identity in rural Australia. I have a book full of story ideas that will hopefully start to be explored over the coming years.

Who gave you your first camera and what did you take photos of? I am not sure if he gave it to me, but I kind of just commandeered my dad’s old Pentax K1000 and started taking it with me everywhere. My first photo story as a kid was a black and white day in the life of my dog.

What do you try and capture in your photos? Authenticity, as clichéd as it sounds.

When has been a time that you wished you had a camera on you? I am okay with missing a picture. They become the unicorns in your head – sometimes you grieve for a picture you miss, but mostly I like to let them inspire me.

And one where you wished you hadn’t? I have on numerous occasions been witness to something so incredible that I put my camera away so as to truly be in the moment. Some things, I believe, should live only as memories. One example of this was the magical ride I did in Iceland on my birthday that I mentioned earlier. I didn't take my camera with me because I just wanted to be. Of course it was one of the most spectacular displays of nature and light that I had ever seen, and of course it would have made beautiful pictures. But I was just living and breathing it, and it is such a strong memory that I don't need pictures. It is special, just for me.

What destination would you love to go to? Africa, so many animals and so many stories involving animals and people.

You’re heading back to Iceland, what will this trip entail?

There is a huge horse festival that happens every two years in Iceland so that will be the focus, along with connecting deeper with the great contacts I met last year and delving further into their stories.

What’s on your 2016 to-do list? So many things. On a professional front I just want to create great work with great people. I also want to start selling prints and start teaching workshops again. Personally I am aiming to go back to Mongolia to work on a new project involving the reindeer tribes of the northwest, as well as the return trip to Iceland. I also hope to start shooting a project, which I am currently researching. It’s still under wraps but basically the story looks at the bonds of a very unique human/animal relationship in Australia, and the controversy surrounding it.

I am pretty excited about 2016. hannahrose.com.au and @hannah_rose_robinson.

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LET IT SHINE What room doesn't need a pretty hangy thing? No room, and you know it.

PROJECT TAMARA MAYNES

This project is a great introduction to working with sheet metal, using a manual cutting technique.

Sheet metal is available in many gauges: the medium-weight sheet used here is sturdy enough to hold its shape but thin enough to cut with scissors or, preferably, specific sheet-metal shears.

Thin sheet metal and wire usually come rolled and you can buy them at jewellery-making supply stores, art and craft stores and online.

Metalwork is a craft that generally requires the use of specialised tools and equipment, but this wall hanging has been designed to keep those to a minimum. You can go up or down in gauge but be warned, any thinner and you risk denting the metal quite easily and anything thicker will require more particular tools. Besides pipe cutters (and pipe), which are available at hardware stores, all other tools can be purchased from the same outlets as sheet metal and wire.

The best advice when working with metal is to wear gloves – particularly when you will be dodging the sharp edges of sheet metal. They will also help you avoid leaving fingerprints on the shiny surface, minimising the need for polishing the finished piece. Choose gloves that are thick enough to protect your hands while still allowing your fingertips to feel and work with the material easily.

Let’s Get Making Download the template from tamaramaynes.com and print out onto plain A3 paper at 100%.

Wear protective gloves to unroll and carefully flatten out sheet metal. Lay it on an unmarked flat Materials

Tools

printed template tamaramaynes.com

fitted cotton gloves

30-gauge copper sheet metal

sheet metal shears

24-gauge copper wire 6-gauge copper pipe spray-on clear lacquer for metal

pencil ruler metal hole punch pipe cutters wire cutters chain-nose pliers with non-serrated jaws polishing cloth

surface under a stack of heavy books overnight.

To prepare copper wire for joining metal pieces, cut 14 short lengths of wire.

To prepare copper wire for hanging, cut one 32cm length of wire.

To prepare copper pipe, cut one 13cm length using pipe cutters.

Cut out the paper template pieces, place on the metal sheet and trace around them with a pencil, also marking the spots where holes are to be punched. Use sheet metal shears to carefully cut out the individual metal pieces.

To make holes, use a metal hole punch to gently pierce metal pieces where indicated on the template.

To join the metal pieces, thread the short wire lengths through the punched holes, as indicated in the photograph. Use pliers to fold one wire end over and squash back onto itself to secure. Thread the other end of the wire through the corresponding hole. Keep all the folded wire ends to the back.

To hang, first thread the 32cm wire length through the pipe. Thread the ends through the holes at top left and right of the top curved metal piece, as shown. Use pliers to fold the wire ends over to secure, as before.

To polish, gently clean entire hanging with polishing cloth. Immediately after cleaning, hang outside and spray with lacquer to seal as per manufacturer’s instructions. This step will help prevent the copper oxidising.

Words and images from The Maker by Tamara Maynes (Murdoch Books), $59.99. Available now from all good bookstores and online.

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ART MEETS FASHION Like stardust, behold the beauty made when two creative worlds collide with an almighty crash.

WORDS ANNIE SEBEL & ELEANOR ROBERTSON

G.Kero "When you go out you hardly find anyone with a drawing on their jacket! Patterns, yes, but what about a big beautiful drawing?” asks Marguerite Bartherotte, half of French fashion duo G.Kero.

It’s a great question. Apart from the odd pensioner rocking a Mona Lisa T-shirt, or a preschooler sporting a jumper with their favourite cartoon character on the front, fashion and art are like you and that friend you haven’t really spoken to since the late '90s. Why did you stop talking? Who can even remember? Along with her brother Philippe, Marguerite is bringing fashion and art back together in a big way.

“I really love Marguerite’s work, and to own a painting wasn’t enough. It’s exciting for me to create clothes with her drawings,” says Philippe, who kicked off the G.Kero story by printing one of Marguerite’s drawings onto a T-shirt a few years ago in Brazil. “While I was in Rio de Janeiro, a city where everyone wears T-shirts, I realised there wasn’t anything cute in the shops. Just plain surfers’ stuff, or hard metal iconography. I asked my sister to do a drawing and had it silk screened on a T-shirt.”

Marguerite’s designs range from skiers to parrots to David Bowie to couples in ‘the embrace of marriage’, as it’s known in health education pamphlets from 1960. “My daydreams are full of colours and very hard to describe,” she says. “It’s a space of freedom, very slippery and sensitive. I start every good project with a dream, and I do a lot with imagination.”

Philippe, on the other hand, takes care of business. “I do not daydream,” he says. “I try to pay attention to our tasks, and be as conscientious as possible.” This may provide a clue as to why you don’t find many emerging artists trying

to crack the fashion industry: they don’t have a sibling with precisely the opposite skills and temperament who can stand to be around them for 12 hours a day.

“Regarding style, for me nothing has been achieved like the Egyptian paintings in the Valley of the Kings tombs,” says Philippe. “For 3000 years they worked on a single style. Not egotistic artists, but religious artisans. This is high dope.” Marguerite prefers Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie; it’s pretty easy to imagine Bowie and Hatshepsut yukking it up together in matching G.Kero outfits.

“A normal day is having the place where I sleep turned into an atelier in ten minutes because I have an idea coming.

By the end of the day my eyes are sore because of the hours I spent scrutinizing the painting and colours so closely,” says Marguerite.

“I go to the office and have many problems to solve, from collection to production. I get about 5 minutes in a day I can rest,” says Philippe. We’re detecting a division of responsibility here, and it seems to be working out well: G.Kero clothes have been spotted on Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne and Taiwanese superstar Barbie Hsu. Not since you separated your bangers from your veggies using a wall of mashed potato have two very different things reached such a point of harmony.

In her spare time Marguerite likes to write songs about boys she used to love. “I need five more guys to finish my album,” she says. This year she plans to create music for G.Kero’s first catwalk show.

And Philippe? “Never speak about something before it comes true,” he says. gkero.fr and @gkeroparis.

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Jose Romussi Some of the best things in the world happened by accident.

In 1968 Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, accidentally invented Post-It notes while trying to formulate a superstrong glue. Without that random error we’d all still be using garden-variety bookmarks like common chumps, and mad geniuses in Hollywood films would have nothing to cover their bedroom walls in to illustrate how crazy they are.

Jose Romussi’s artistic career also began by accident.

“Once, a Chilean artist who managed an art collective asked me if I was an artist just like the other people present in the room and I answered yes. Then, they asked me if they could see my work so I went away for a few days and I started to do collages using drawings that I had made when I was a child and pictures that my mom used to collect. Then I showed my pieces to the collective, and they asked me to work with them,” he told French blog Le Fil Conducteur.

After growing up in Chile, Romussi now lives half the year in Berlin and half in Chile. “I grew up in Santiago but also Valparaiso, where there are a lot of street dogs. Now my studio is in Berlin with aview to Gorlitzer Park, it’s awesome in winter because of the snow,” he says. The lack of street dogs in his new home reflects his extraordinary success: only in his 30s, he is an internationally successful artist with over a dozen solo and group exhibitions under his belt. His favourite compliment on his creations? “Your work is great and clean, but you look like a messy boy.”

Romussi studied landscape design, which is about as far away from embroidery on found photographs as it’s possible to get without leaving the art world entirely. “Embroidery has been used for so long by ancient cultures, and for me

it is true art, where I hope my work is leading,” he says. “I also use different materials and formats, like for my last exhibition where I presented three masks made from palm bark and sculptures of cardboard and thread.”

The threads that overlay Romussi’s photographic canvases are striking. Some of his works feature geometric or wavy patterns applied with a light touch, so they look like natural accents or veins within the photograph that have been highlighted in technicolour. Others feature the embroidery in a more explicit way; on some photos of faces Romussi embroiders grotesque or exaggerated features that look like masks, creating a totally different and unsettling effect.

“Images come to my head, I start remembering a landscape and then I start drawing and giving colour. Next come the threads or yarn,” he says. “I have always been influenced by the simple lines of Matisse [and the] biological worlds in Kandinsky.” Recently he’s been branching out into tapestry, as well as work made from scraps of lace joined together to create delicate, raw-edged hangings. Given that many of us struggle to put together an outfit most mornings, it’s safe to say Romussi’s creative antenna is tuned in to some different wavelengths.

“At the moment I’m in the south of Chile, preparing my new work. I’m taking photos of nature, collecting pieces and objects,” he says. “I want to go to Bolivia soon, but anywhere far from the city. I spend too much time in the city.” joseromussi.com.

PHOTOS HILARY FAYE SLOANE.

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Mirador Talk about success and people slingshot around words like dream, drive, destiny and motivation. It quickly descends into a bad motivational poster with a mountain climber and a horrible font. So Lauren Elise Cassar is a long cool drink when she credits patience as being intergral to her first step towards succes. The graphic designer/artist/textile designer/mega-slashie is the owner of Mirador, a label that effortlessly merges fashion and art.

Originally from Kettering, Tasmania, Cassar grew up in a creative family. "Mum is the master of all crafts, she is a potter, she sews, creates the most beautiful stained glass, and gardens like a magician, think Monet, Australia style," says Cassar. "My beautiful Dad worked as a letterpress printer and a blues musician, cranking Steely Dan all throughout my life." Her childhood seems like it has been suscipiciously lifted straight from a Hardy Boys novel. "I spent the majority of my childhood running through the wet bush, peeling leeches off my legs as we explored, or sailing the D’Entrecasteaux Channel on our yellow yacht, Shiloh. We would sail between Kettering and Bruny Island, fish, jump in to the freezing water. I love it there, that island.

I long for it and have to go back every year, just to breathe the air and soften my eyes by the sight of the channel."

Taking her away from her beloved island was the pull of opportunity in Melbourne. There she studied graphic design at RMIT and then she waited. And waited. And waited.

Sudoku-d out, she was offered a position at fashion label Kuwaii. "I was extremely patient until the right opportunities came up. I entered the small team of two at Kuwaii to make it three. They luckily gave me the opportunity to combine

my two great affections: fashion and art," says Cassar. "I took notice of the careful folds in fabric and how a pattern can balance out a garment, enhance it. I love large scale prints, how sections are only shown if you fold the garment one way, or tie it another."

After also working at The Australian Ballet, Cassar felt the need do her own thing and thought up Mirador as a space to introduce the world to her textile design. She decided to start small and focus on sarongs. "I saw sarongs as one very large canvas for this. They haven’t moved from traditional aesthetics in the Western world since they were introduced in the 1940s — this frustrated me, as we have seen swimwear be refined year after year. So I took a plunge and am so, so happy I did." Her sarongs are like artworks on material, beautifully composed with interesting colour combinations made up of sweeping textured paintbrushes.

Cassar's vision for Mirador is "to create an outcome I feel proud of. I always have a focal point which is relevant to mine and hopefully a lot of other women's lives — nature, strength, career, maternity, pottery, food, conversation, power." Her winter collection sees the range expand to include handpainted kimonos, heavy linen wraps and bush tucker prints. Cassar says she's inspired by sharing, connecting and Australian culture, especially a recent road trip to Uluru with her best friend. "I will never get over the beauty, the sound, the textures, the full moon over this incredibly spiritual place. My heart is warm just reminiscing about it." mirador.net.au and @mirador_.

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THE SOCIAL OUTFIT This fashion label is sewing together ethical integrity and the textile talent of local migrant communities to produce clothes that make you and your conscience happy.

WORDS ELEANOR ROBERTSON PHOTOS BYRON SPENCER

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55 We all do crazy things to achieve our goals. Some people spend years preparing themselves for the Olympics, getting up at 5am every day to hone their bodies through punishing Rocky-style training regimens. Others devote their spare time to hitting the Random Article button on Wikipedia, hoping they’ll retain enough useless facts to win a lifetime supply of mildly tainted whiskey at pub trivia (we won’t name names). And Jackie Ruddock, founder of ethical fashion label The Social Outfit, spent an entire year in 2010/2011 wearing clothes by 1980s icon Ken Done to raise money for fellow label The Social Studio.

“I started with 40 items. Ken donated items and people from around Australia donated gear and let me borrow it,” says Ruddock. “People I’ve never met donated clothes and money. This worked because so many people supported the idea and came along for the 1980s Ken Done fashion ride.”

The project, called 'What Ken Be Done', ended up raising over $25,000 for the The Social Studio, which provides employment and training opportunities in Melbourne for recent migrants and people from refugee backgrounds.

Their clothing is beautiful, locally designed, and free from lots of the nasties involved with ‘fast fashion’. All the fabric is reclaimed and up-cycled material gathered from local industry, the workers are paid a fair and liveable wage, plus the business aims to produce as little waste as humanly possible.

The whole operation is ethical and sustainable enough for the Captain Planet seal of approval (or it would be if he hadn’t retired back in ’96 due to the stresses and strains of fighting ruthless environmental terrorism). In a world where we’re encouraged to buy $8 polyester nightmares from dodgy discount shops that fall apart after one machine wash, this approach is refreshing: what if our clothes were made using fair labour arrangements? What if we bought a few quality pieces, instead of adding that 500th piece of cheap garbage to our disgraceful floordrobes? What if you never had to confront another unravelling cut-price jumper that's already begging to be punted into the closest wheelie bin, even though it's only six months old?

“In the process of 'What Ken Be Done' I learnt more and more about what The Social Studio did in terms of training and employment, and I loved their use of creativity and community building. I was living in Sydney, and The Social Studio was in Melbourne. What would happen if we replicated their creative work with people from new migrant and refugee communities here?” says Ruddock.

After her year of living Done-gerously turned into such a ripsnorting philanthropy success, it’s not hard to see why Ruddock decided to have a crack at her own ethical fashion project (frankly we're wondering if we should have a go too). “By the end of that year we’d amassed a community of supporters here in Sydney,” she says. “A number of us

agreed to take the challenge, and after two and half years of hard work, we opened the doors to The Social Outfit in Newtown in June 2014. Like many ideas, it started slowly, and it took a lot of effort and a lot of people to actually get the idea off the ground.”

Ruddock’s remix of the ethical fashion studio concept is a bean-to-bar process that takes place entirely in the Inner West of Sydney. “We collaboratively design and create all our garments,” she says. “Our fabric comes from two sources: excess donated by the fashion industry, and digitally printed silk produced by The Social Studio in Melbourne. So we might use swimming suit lycra donated

by Seafolly, or a silk crepe from Alice McCall or Ginger & Smart.”

In addition to their other commendable works, The Social Outfit also provides a recovery program for Sydney's fabric packrats that helps them manage the debilitating urge to warehouse material they won't ever use but can't bear to throw away. "Each year we run a fabric donation drive where the community donates their larger pieces of quality fabric to our store. I think there are quite a few people in Sydney’s creative community who collect fabrics over the years and now they know where they can give them a good home," says Ruddock.

“A regular sight at The Social Outfit is to see us all talking to one another around the cutting table, while we look over the donated fabric and our silk designs. We save fabric from ending up in landfill, and customers enjoy the collaboration across fashion houses.”

Naw Esther, a sewing technician, emphasises The Social Outfit’s environment of collaboration and skills-sharing as things she enjoys about her job. “Working here I get to show my skills. I’m learning one year about sewing and about the shop. I share my skills. This place is nice. Everyone is teaching each other,” she says.

All of this happens at their Newtown location, so you can actually have a stickybeak and see the pieces being made at the back of the shop – just poke your head into one of the shop fit-out's little perspex windows, which peek into the workshop. Compared to standard garment manufacture, that’s some radical transparency – many large clothing companies claim they don’t even know what conditions their products are made under because there’s so much sub-contracting and sub-sub-contracting in their supply chains. It’s a bit like laws and sausages: the process of making mass market clothes is so gross that nobody wants to watch. Dodgy, harmful and illegal practices are rife.

In contrast, The Social Outfit runs on harnessing the individual skills and backgrounds of its employees. “Our sewing technicians have come to Australia as refugees and new migrants, and each of them brings a wealth of talent and knowledge with rich traditions in sewing and

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tailoring,” says Ruddock. “One of the highlights of our work is to watch people from countries across the world, often speaking different languages, sit side by side and share their knowledge together. As Ken Done says, the great thing about creativity is that it doesn’t need the same language.”

New migrants and refugees face many unique challenges in Australia, often on top of traumatic experiences in their home countries and the difficult process of migration itself.

Public attitudes toward migrants and refugees, especially those from linguistically diverse backgrounds, can be outright hostile. Migration is a tough row to hoe at the best of times, but this can make finding a job about as likely as winning America’s Next Top Model. Initiatives like The Social Outfit aren’t just a nice idea: they’re critical sources of social inclusion, income and ongoing support.

“Everyone working here is very good. I’m happy here working. The Social Outfit is like family members, gives a good feeling,” says Jabael, an employee at The Social Outfit.

“People respect each other a lot. My English is little, but here I am learning, and I can ask people and they help me. I hope our work is successful, I pray.”

The clothes and accessories coming out of The Social Outfit’s twice-yearly collections are gorgeous in addition to being easy on the conscience. The digitally printed designs are eye-catching and playful, ranging from bold florals to a subtle geometric pattern that, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a game of Pac-Man. Even Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde are a product of The Social Outfit’s all-in approach to teamwork: the print is part of a collaboration with Celia Morris, whose legendary local label Dragstar has a shop just down the road. Carla Zampatti, who can only be described as A Huge Deal in the world of Australian fashion, became an ambassador for The Social Outfit in 2014 and has donated silks and sequinned pieces from her own businesses.

“Our community silk prints are especially exciting,” says Ruddock. “For our first birthday we worked with five women from the Karen-Burmese community to create a digital print celebrating the amazing weaving and looming talents of the Karen people. Instead of the print being produced in the traditional heavy-weight rayon, we printed it onto silk, perfect for Sydney’s warmer climate.”

You can’t get much better than that as a reflection of the best bits of Australian multiculturalism, except maybe if you dressed a kangaroo in the clothes and it hopped down the street singing the national anthem in five different languages.

“Time and time again we have seen that the people who come to The Social Outfit are keen to contribute and want to settle safely in Australia,” says Ruddock. “When there is a huge amount of change and uncertainty in your life, it’s a real benefit when you can share your own skills and feel like you’re part of something bigger... we want to contribute to the conversation of social inclusion and refugee rights by letting people see, first hand, the skills and talents of the community, and working together to build a resilient multicultural Sydney.”

In 2015 the onsite sewing school partnered with Sydney TAFE to provide Certificate III in clothing production, in order to offer better training to their staff. “We know the fashion industry is a fiercely competitive business, and manufacturing in Australia is in decline,” says Ruddock.

“But there’s so much fashion to share! The Social Outfit relies on us coming together to make success continue.

We’d like to employ and train more people, and build a robust social enterprise.”

Ruddock isn’t the only person who wants The Social Outfit to succeed: the organisation has received generous support from business and community groups, as well as coming out ahead of their goals in crowdfunding campaigns.

These achievements reflect how truly cool their concept is, and the enthusiasm it inspires in strangers, especially given how easy it is to set up a failed Kickstarter and become a global laughing-stock for half an hour.

“Our work so far makes me incredibly hopeful about Australia’s creative future – and all the people who have stepped up to share their own talents with us,” says Ruddock, and it’s tough not to agree.

“We all own The Social Outfit. I think of this shop as belonging to each of us,” says sewing technician Atauollah.

“Every day I come to work and do my best, because it will help us all.” thesocialoutfit.org.

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A guide to...

SCI-FI FASHION If your sartorial style is Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element you're in luck, cause sci-fi fashion is here to let you charge your phone by plugging it into your bikini.

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From the metal visors, self-tying Nikes and truly alarming plastic headwear in the Back to the Future films, to the black-is-the-new-black approach in The Matrix inspiring an urban army of teenagers wearing midnight-hued sunglasses and trench coats, sci-fi has spawned some curious fashion phenonema. It’s not all silver insulation and wire antennae, though – while futuristic fashion certainly takes its cues from the movies, it’s got its sights set on making the world more fun and functional to boot.

Smelly Clothes Smelly clothes could be the way of the future, and we don’t mean those rank specimens lurking in your washing basket or piled high in your artfully constructed Shame Pile.

Jenny Tillotson from the University of the Arts in London has been working on clothing embedded with tiny tubes of aromatherapy. She happened on the idea when working with HIV charities, figuring the toxic chemical, disinfectant smell of hospitals didn’t exactly create an atmosphere conducive to healing. So she set about researching the connection between smell and mood. Along the way, she wanted to create a scented bubble around people to help them wake up in the morning, sleep at night and generally stay alert and peachy-keen to work and play during the day.

It’s hoped the duds will not only be capable of improving wearers’ moods, but also enhancing learning and even helping older brains stay sharp. The deterioration of the sense of smell in older people is linked to dementia, and pumping out extra-strength doses of eau de nostalgia could help ward off a case of the forgetfuls. Or vampires, if you happen to be wearing garlic-scented garters that day.

Glow-In-The-Dark Creepy-Crawlies Like the plot of a cult horror film, Japanese scientists have bred a secret army of 20,000 mutant silkworms in a lab, feeding them mulberry leaves and harvesting their cocoon silk to turn into a useable thread. The scientists created these transgenic worms by inserting DNA into the silkworm genome to produce fluorescent proteins in a choice of three colours. One lot got green jellyfish protein and the other batches got red and orange proteins from two different types of coral. The thread spun by these silkworms glows under fluorescent light, and the colours continue to react like this for more than two years. The resulting fabric has been made into everything from suits and ties – because nothing says corporate like glow-in-the-dark duds – to wedding dresses, for the bride who wants to evoke the romantic ambience of nuclear waste.

Full Steam Ahead Some of us create alternate realities in our mind where we never dated that goober in high school who said they loved us but then dumped us for the PE teacher with bad BO. Others pretend humanity never really lost its Victorian-era hard-on for steam engines and Amelia Earhart goggles.

Followers of the steampunk movement fall into the latter camp. Author Kevin Jeter reportedly first coined the term “steampunk” in the 1980s to distinguish sci-fi that follows on from the retrofuturistic mashups of Jules Verne and Mary Shelley, rather than the tech-heavy cyberpunk works of writers like William Gibson. The world of steampunk is full of magnificent flying machines, diving bells, brass fixings and ornate engravings. In the realm of fashion, lifestyle devotees dress up as explorers, soldiers, countesses and ye olde prostitutes, often adorning themselves with bits of old clocks and superfluous buckles. The look is a bit Tim Burton, a bit pirate-style lace and leather, a bit aviator chic, a dash of burlesque and a whole lotta batshit crazy. If all this sounds like your cup of chitty-chitty-bang-bang, there are a bunch of steampunk-themed festivals each year around the world, including Ironfest in Lithgow, New South Wales.

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Solar Bikini Earth-friendly nerds will snort with delight at the thought of a sun-powered bikini at the beach, especially as water and electricity mix so well together and aren’t at all likely to turn you into a fiery ball of death. The Solar Bikini can charge your mobile while you kick back, catch some rays and scope out the local talent in a totally non-pervy fashion. Dreamt up by New York designer Andrew Schneider, each bikini features 40 small, bendy versions of the solar panels on your roof, sewn together using conductive thread. A supersexy USB port completes the look. You can even go for a swim in the device, although probably not while charging your phone to avoid the fiery ball of death scenario sketched out above. (Swimming with your smartphone also carries the high risk of turning it into a soggy, useless doorstopper that will bring tears to your eyes every time you see it.) If this all sounds hunky-dory, you can expect to be the proud owner of these techno-togs for a cool US$500 to US$1,500 (or more!). Watch this space – Schneider was last heard planning a diffusion line of iDrink men’s solar shorts, the perfect thing to charge the world’s smallest esky at your next one-man sausage sizzle.

Shake And Bake Spray cans have brought us the miracles of whipped cream, hairspray and what’s widely considered to be the scariest cheese product known to man. You can now add shakeand-spray fabric to the list. Inspired by a can of silly string, Fabrican was invented by Dr Manel Torres from Imperial College in London. Taking bodycon and skinny jeans to a whole new level, the liquid can be sprayed on to create a thin fabric that you can peel off, wash and wear again. It comes in a variety of colours and materials, lending itself to all sorts of funky applications. It’s hoped the invention will be used to make bandages without disturbing the wound and the substance even absorbs oil, opening up the possibility it could be used to soak up oceanic spills.

Whoever said fashion is frivolous?

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FACES OF FASHION Like worker bees inside a hive, meet a swarm of talented do-ers who all contribute in different ways to the cosmos of fashion.

The Blogger

Brooke Testoni

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How did you get your start? Why did you decide to start blogging? I studied graphic design and multimedia, and also worked in the fashion industry. When I started my blog, it was more like a Pinterest (before Pinterest was around).

Then I started to put a few photos of myself up and noticed how much more traction it was getting. I then kept it going.

industry because it is forever changing and evolving. Each season you learn of new trends, upcoming brands and new talented creatives.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned along the way? It is very important to stay true to your aesthetic and style. Being a blogger it is easy to look at other blogs/websites and get influenced by them, but I think it is important not to do so and just stay true to your own style.

What do you do to get out of a funk? Apologise, it gets you a long way!

What advice do you have for others wanting to start a blog? Find a niche and don’t copy others. Be an individual!

What would you be happy to not see again? Platform sneakers, cutout dresses, Crocs and reflector sunglasses.

Who would you love to collaborate with? Wow, this is a hard question. There are so many highly talented creatives and brands I would love to work with. To name a few: Miu Miu, Gucci, Acne Studios, Opening Ceremony… the list goes on.

What are the three golden rules of a good blog? Great imagery (this is a must, people), showing a little personality through your words and photos, and consistency.

What would you like to change? Stop designers from copying others. I find it very unfair.

What are you obsessed with? Polaroids, film photography, chocolate, wine, Mary Jane heels, my Vetements jeans, Crème de la Mer moisturiser and statement earrings.

Who do you admire? I admire my husband. And Jane Birkin, I truly admire Miss Birkin.

What does 2016 have in store for you? 2016 should be a good one – fingers crossed! I can sense a little travel, design collaborations, a brand of my own and spending more time in LA/New York.

What do you love about the industry? I love the fashion

brooketestoni.com and @brooketestoni.

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The Photographer

Saskia Wilson When did you first pick up a camera? I think I would have been ten or 11, playing dress ups and taking photographs with my little sister. My dad is an artist and used to take photographs to then paint, so there were always film cameras around the house.

Who do you admire? Anyone who can manage to have a job they love, do a yoga class once in a while, eat well, maintain meaningful friendships, participate in the community they live in (and the world), be well informed and well read and still find time to sleep! I definitely haven’t figured that out.

How did you get your start professionally? Six months out of university I emailed the editor of a magazine I had been reading and dreaming of working for since I was 19, and was very surprised to not only get a reply but also a job!

The second thing I shot for the magazine was an editorial and the third was a cover! I’m certain things don’t happen that way very often, but I think it was a combination of good timing and good luck.

What do you love about the industry? I love that I get to collaborate with such a diverse range of people and that my job is constantly changing and challenging me in different ways. I have never had a ‘regular’ job where I have to be in the same place five days a week and I really don’t think I could hack it!

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned along the way? Working in hospitality probably contributed to this, but when you are working with different people every day, it’s important to be able to talk to almost anyone about almost anything. I’ve also had a few moments lately where I’ve been on commercial fashion jobs and thought to myself, ‘oh yeah, this is just a normal job for some people’, without any of those ‘fashion industry’ clichés or personalities.

What advice do you have for others wanting to start photography? Photographs are being consumed on so many different platforms, it makes it pretty hard to stand out. I would suggest developing your own aesthetic that is unique, genuine and consistent. Keep doing what you love with people that you love, and be patient.

Who would you love to collaborate with? There are a lot of very talented Australians who I would love to work with.

Especially those interested in harnessing our Australian landscape, light and culture. I would love to work with the Sydney Dance and Theatre companies, and more local and international print publications.

What would you like to change? On the one hand the industry can be far too insular, and it can sometimes encourage a level of narcissism and consumerism that I’m not comfortable with. I think the fashion industry could function in a way that is more engaged with the rest of the world. In Australia we could stand to be a little more insular.

We could stop referencing things that look ‘European’ or ‘American’ and use more of the incredible talent, locations and opportunities we have here.

What are you obsessed with? The medium of print. Last year I was in New York during the NY Art Book Fair; I filled every inch of my luggage with art and photography books, prints and magazines. No matter how many times it happens I am always so excited to see my photographs in print.

What does 2016 have in store for you? I would like to see more of Australia this year — there are a couple of walks that I am daydreaming about in NT and WA. I would like to make more time to research a personal project I am working on, and hopefully I just get to keep taking photos and getting paid to do what I love! saskiawilson.com and @saskiawilson.

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The Store Owners

Incu's Brian and Vincent Wu When did you first get the idea to start Incu? It was around 15 years ago, back in 2001. We were both working in IT in jobs we didn’t really enjoy. We came up with the idea one day at lunch; it felt like there was a real gap in the market for stores that provided a great retail experience.

Back then, most stores didn’t have a customer focus, and no one was really putting much effort into creating an experience for shoppers.

Did you guys have a background in fashion? No, we had no experience whatsoever. We hadn’t worked in retail before, so we spent a few months meeting up with as many people as possible in the industry. We definitely made lots of mistakes, but we also looked at things from a different perspective than people who were quite entrenched in the fashion industry, so we embraced it.

Who do you admire? We recently ate at Noma Australia and found the whole experience incredibly inspiring. We both really admire chefs — there is so much passion and dedication in what they do. To do it over and over again and to constantly keep up that level of consistency is pretty admirable.

What do you love about the industry? There are so many opportunities in the Australian fashion industry right now, and it feels really exciting. The old business models for retail aren’t really working any more, so there’s a lot of freedom to try out new and different ideas.

What was the first brand you definitely knew you wanted to stock and why? Hmm… that was quite a while ago. I do remember Paul Smith being the first men’s brand we really wanted. The brand has such character and personality, we always felt like he understood men very well.

What would you like to change? Not much actually, we’re pretty happy with where we are at the moment. You never know what is around the corner, but I do believe we’ve set the business up to take on most challenges. We’ll see what opportunities come up in the future.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned along the way? Trust your instincts. Fashion and retail aren’t rocket science. A lot of the time it’s really just about following your gut and having the confidence to do the complete opposite to everyone else.

What do you do to get out of a funk? Go for a walk. Our office is in Surry Hills, it’s always nice to go for a walk around the block to clear the head.

What has been the biggest stuff up you’ve had? We’ve had so many stuff ups it’s hard to say which has been the biggest. I do remember we massively over-ordered denim when we first started. We had so much left over; it took us a long time to get through it. But it helped us understand our customer and improve our buying.

What advice do you have for others wanting to start their own store? Don’t overthink it. Sometimes you just need to take that big leap into the unknown.

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trying to think of ways to enhance customer experience, and working with someone outside of our industry would be pretty exciting.

Who would you love to collaborate with? I don’t think there’s a particular fashion brand we have in mind to collaborate with, but it would be great to work with some of the amazing restaurateurs in this country. We’re always

What are you obsessed with? Family is the priority for both of us right now. Kids really put things in perspective.

What does 2016 have in store for your stores? We’re in the process of expanding our Melbourne stores in the QV Building, which will give us the opportunity to better showcase our complete stable of brands. We’re really excited to see the end result.

We are also opening our first Queensland store in the Pacific Fair Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast. This is a new market for us, and we’re looking forward to the challenge. I’m sure other opportunities will come up throughout the year, but for now we’re focused on making sure we have a good internal structure in place to support any future growth. incu.com and @incu_clothing.

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The Maker

The Knitter’s Nicole Leybourne How did you get your start? I used to knit a bit here and there with my mum and my nan when I was young. However, I wasn’t exactly the best knitter in the world (I’m still not).

I have taught myself a lot since then, and I’m now pretty happy to say that my knits have a lot less holes.

What do you love about the industry? That people are free to create magic.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned along the way? Patience and perseverance.

What do you do to get out of a funk? Laugh. Sometimes it’s the only way.

What advice do you have for others wanting to get into your field? Never give up. I’ve also learned that trawling social media isn’t an overly productive way to utilise our short time here on planet Earth.

What would you be happy to not see again? Animal cruelty.

What has been your favourite project to work on?

Knitting my first really long ‘Z’ scarf in the Tokyo summer heat, while my roommate and I listened to music together in our shoebox-sized apartment well into the wee hours. I treasure such silly memories.

What did you become obsessed with while in Tokyo? The sound of the cicadas buzzing all through the hot summer nights. Some nights I'd walk home at four AM and they'd be making so much noise that I would forget to be scared. Also, the sushi. It really is the best.

Who would you love to collaborate with? Romance was Born and Meadham Kirchhoff because they’re fun.

Who do you admire? My mum. I admire my mum for just getting on with life and never complaining about all that she has been through. My mum is kind and has a heart that never stops giving, even to those who have not been kind to her. My mum is tiny and small on the outside but strong and resilient on the inside.

What would you like to change? That the industry takes itself so seriously – too seriously.

How long does it take you to knit a piece? A cardigan takes couple of days if I work without any distractions. So, usually longer.

What’s the most important attribute for a knitter to have? Patience.

Where's the craziest place you've knitted? As silly as it sounds, in Perth’s 40 degree summer heat. I never knew knitting could make me so hot and bothered.

What are you working on? Seamless garments – I am teaching myself how to knit on circular needles and it's quite rewarding when you have finally got to that place where it all starts to come together. When my design starts looking less like a bunch of woolly noodles lying on the living room floor and more like a cardigan, that is such a good feeling.

What does 2016 have in store for you? I would love to visit India and Mount Everest in Nepal. I would also like to stock my knits in a few places and to have many more adventures. theknitter.co and @nicoleleybourne.

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Ollie Henderson How did you get your start modelling? I grew up in a small town, Creswick, so modelling was the furthest thing from my mind as a teen. When I was 15 my mum and I went on a special trip to Melbourne to go shopping for my year 10 formal dress. I was scouted in a shopping mall there. Within six months I was in Milan. That’s when things really kicked off.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned along the way? I know it’s clichéd, but to be myself. As a model, your income is dictated by your popularity. This can make you feel like you have to please everyone around you to be good at your job. And when your job is not only your physical body but also your personality, your clothes, your attitude, it can be a bit of a minefield trying to make all of these things fit into what you think others will like. The day that I decided to not give a fuck was the best day of my life.

What advice do you have for others wanting to get into your field? I would say: which field? I model, but I also run two businesses (House of Riot and On The Floor), I’m the chair of a women’s advocacy group (Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced), sit on the board for two not-for-profit organisations, plus I’m a freelance writer and DJ in the evenings. One of the things I hear a lot from people who want to start their own project is that they’re not ready.

Trust me, you’re never ready. No one expects you to be an expert if you are just starting out, and people will give you a go if you work hard and are enthusiastic. You will fuck things up, but that’s part of the process. Your mistakes will make you stronger; don’t let failure deter you.

What has been your favourite project to work on?

My current project for On The Floor is really fun. We’re organising a panel for Vivid Festival called Cultivating Creativity in Australia – Video Games. This has been so exciting because prior to this I knew very little about the video games industry, but I love public debate/discussion and feel passionately about building creative industries in Australia. It has been so much fun diving into a field that I know nothing about and meeting some of the most talented and intelligent people around.

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What do you love about the industry? I love meeting people who truly see and harness the power of fashion for positive change. I was recently at an in-conversation with Lee Lin Chin and Angelica Cheung of Vogue China.

Angelica told us all about the fashion industry in China,

but she was really telling us about how Chinese culture is expressed through the vehicle of fashion. Fashion is a mirror of society and in return it can also inform society – it is the informing of society that I am really interested in. Angelica uses Vogue to educate Chinese people about fashion, but also to showcase local Chinese designers. There is a strong emphasis on big foreign labels in China and she is trying to bring attention back locally, to support their own young and talented designers. She has a huge influence and she’s using it for good.

What would you like to change? Garment manufacturing.

We speak a lot in fashion about women’s issues such as body image and female portrayal in the media, but what about the women working in sweatshops to produce the clothes that you wear? I know it’s difficult to know where your clothes come from, but there are some great resources out there that have done the work for you – just Google it.

What do you do to get out of a funk? Who wants to get out of funk? Slap that bass, baby. But seriously, if you are in a funk, listen to funk, it will solve all your problems and if it doesn’t you can at least laugh at how ironic you are being.

Can you tell us a bit about House of Riot? House of Riot started almost two years ago at Fashion Week 2014. I wanted to use my position in the fashion industry to make a positive change in the world, so I swarmed Fashion Week with handmade slogan tees with political messages. We still continue to make the hand-painted tees and other apparel, run events (now through On The Floor), collaborate with local artists to do public art installations, make zines and raise funds for our favourite charities. We’re always looking for different ways to make caring about the world fun and exciting; it doesn’t always have to be so dull.

Who would you love to collaborate with? I’m actually working on a secret collaboration with Rachel Rutt. I only say secret because we are in our early stages of development. But this will be a fun one.

Who do you admire? Whoever runs the blog Dear Coquette.

She’s ballsy, funny and always on-point.

What does 2016 have in store for you? Hard work and learning, like every good year should. thehouseofriot.com and @ollie_henderson.

PHOTOS TOP: AMELIA DOWD. BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT: AMELIA DOWD, MAX DOYLE, ELVIS DI FAZIO.

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HEAD IN THE CLOUDS Most of us let our dreams float away like soap bubbles, but this artist turns his into mysterious watercolour creations.

ART ORIOL ANGRILL JORDÀ WORDS JANA ROOSE

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Trace the projector beam backwards from every beautiful film that dances across a cinema screen and you’ll end up in a grimy, dusty booth, manned by a guy named Gary in a wheelie chair sporting Cokebottle glasses, a camel toe and Maggi Two Minute Noodle breath (probably beef flavour). The same goes for our imagination. The world of Walt Disney, every wild adventure you dreamt up as kid, a swirl of clouds that surrounds a mountain made of pure crystal – they all lead back not to some twinkling, cosmic orb, but the human brain, grey and ordinary. It’s funny the words we use: ‘mind tank’, ‘thought factory’ – unflattering, industrial terms for the thing that fills our world with magic.

Spanish artist Oriol Angrill Jordà grew up in Barcelona, but during his early years he mostly walked the electric pathways in his mind. “I’ve always been a bad student and I had a fervent tendency to distractions,” he says. “I used to waste massive time staring at each shade, light that [shone] onto my classmates, following the flight of a fly or how the pencil fell down while I was pushing the table up with my feet.” Like a Spanish Amélie Poulain, he’d watch daydreams float past like soap bubbles, only to be popped by the death stare of a teacher. His report cards were always a sad event, opened like an overdue bill, read like a eulogy, but his teachers did comment that he drew well, fitting more details onto the paper than most children his age. “I don’t think I was much different from others. Just enjoying happily every new experience, playing mostly on the streets with friends – it was the eighties – creating new games with imagination, no time to get bored, no pressure, no tomorrow. I guess I was more interested in life contemplation than others, though,” he recalls. “Some years ago, my mum found a drawing I did when I was five or less with coloured pencils. There was no human figure, no house next to a tree, or a smiling sun as others did. It was an experimental compilation of colours. I drew many strokes with all the colours I could use to see how they blended with each other.”

After a tough teenage period filled with truancy, failed subjects and presumably a lot of ‘Fuck You, Miss’ carved into the school desk, Angrill Jordà finally took a conscious interest in the world of art thanks to the mind-bending work of M.C. Escher, and decided to dedicate himself to it fully, studying illustration in Palma de Mallorca. As always, the insignificant moments of your childhood look like glaring clues in hindsight, and Angrill Jordà’s early experiments in blending coloured pencil strokes were the proto version of what has brought him success as an artist today: his blendscapes. Working in pencil and watercolour, Angrill Jordà beautifully details overlapped images in soft colour palettes that blow your pupils wide open, like a good trip. “I’ve always loved impossible images, how a line can also be two parts of something and how our brain interprets what we see and how we finish uncompleted images,” he says.

“M.C. Escher was an inspiration to me to start drawing weird compositions. There’s always a next step in everything you do so keep walking over an idea and you’ll necessarily get somewhere new. That’s what I did when I was painting the first blendscape. I just wanted to keep white or empty space on portraits, and that space turned into snow spots to me and I matched it up with mountains and my mind blew up excited!” Some of the women he paints are friends, and others are people on the internet who he finds beautiful – feel the regret at your double-chin profile picture – which he then combines with landscapes both real and imagined. What stands out in his work, whether it’s people or perfectly shaded geodes, is his talent for realism. “I just like to draw things that happen in real life, I’m tired of visiting contemporary art galleries or museums, all I find there, it’s just like visiting primary school on a parent’s day,” he says.

“What I like most is how much you can learn when you are reproducing the laws of nature. Also, there is an immediate response from people, it’s easier to appreciate the effort and talent the artist has. There is no better way to learn how to draw and understand the relationship between colours and feelings.”

Angrill Jordà paints from his studio in Palma de Mallorca, the warm island air mingling with music of every genre, from every part of the world. “It’s the way you can drive your mood,” he says. “However, as I spend hours and hours at the studio, sometimes I get fed up with music and I get interested in a playlist of TED conferences that inspire me in a very different way.” When he gets creatively stuck he’ll put down the brush and tidy up his studio, a distraction for his hands that allows some space to think through where he wants to take his art. “I probably would like to do more public or urban, street art,” he says. “I’d like to learn oil painting to see how far can I go. I’m too stuck on watercolours and it’s a need for me to try new techniques and value its best usage.”

The 30-year-old artist is well past the days of report cards, but now if he opened the envelope it’d be a slam dunk backed by a choir of angels. Reflecting on the years when he didn’t fit the mould, Angrill Jordà gives a shout out to those who may be going through the same thing he did. “I’d like to tell them that there is no already-fixed path. You are living a unique moment so forget all about what you’ve learned and find out what’s upcoming on this new road. Do exactly what fulfils you, share it and be persistent.” oriolangrill.com and @oriolangrill.

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COLD WAR KIDS If music doesn’t pan out, frontman Nathan Willet has a bright future converting the non-believers to the ways of Los Angeles.

WORDS LIZ SCARF

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It’s 24 degrees and sunny in LA, and the guys from Cold War Kids are in the studio working on their next album.

“Before we started touring I always thought that I would move away from this area, but the more we tour the more I love to come back here.” The area of San Pedro, Los Angeles is more than a neighbourhood; the way lead singer Nathan Willet describes it, it’s like a fifth band member or an exciting new friend you can’t stop talking about. Press pause on the theme song for The O.C. that just started playing in your head, because Willet is less interested in teen romances starring 30-year-olds and more enthusiastic about literary pioneers, who occupied the area’s dive bars in the mid 20th century. “Charles Bukowski is very famous for living in San Pedro, but there is a guy who was kind of his idol – his name is John Fante.” Talking about Fante’s most famous novel, Ask the Dust, gets the frontman more eager than a hippie with a hacky sack. “I had people recommend it to me and I finally read it and it just totally blew me away and it got me so excited,” he says. The semiautobiographical novel covers racial politics, sexuality, religiosity and creative anxiety through the lens of an impoverished young writer trying to make it in Depressionera LA. “It’s just one of those books where you just go, ‘Oh, wow. Everything that I want to do is in this book.’”

The shelf life of an indie rock band may be only slightly longer than that of an avocado, but Cold War Kids have defied the odds, clocking up 12 years. With five studio albums of gritty indie-soul under their belt, the five-piece has come a long way since ‘Hang Me Up To Dry’ and ‘Hospital Beds’. Starting out in 2004, they perfected their live act and built a raw sound and character-driven narrative style that helped spark more hype around their debut album than a photo of a Kardashian’s ass on the internet. A decade on and most bands have either made it big or called it quits, but Willet is pragmatic. “There’s a huge gap between the biggest and most successful bands that are headlining festivals and a band that has a very distinct voice but can’t break out into a large audience. I feel like we’re somewhere in between, so a lot of our songs deal with where we stand in all this, with the desire to have a louder voice but also be true to that voice.”

When it comes to likability, Willet is a hard ten. Years after trading in his career as a high school English teacher for a life of touring and recording, the 36-year-old still has all the telltale signs of everyone’s favourite young professor.

He’s intimidatingly well read and radiates an earnestness that would make statements like, “If you want it, you’ve got to go get it” feel like they were straight off a pseudoinspirational Instagram post if it weren’t for his ability to laugh at himself so easily. Even when talking about the notso-fun times, he waxes philosophical. “We had a Pitchfork review which was our first real kick, and that comes with such a variety of emotions,” says Willet of a review of the band’s first album Robbers & Cowards. The piece pointed to the religious bent in his lyrics and skewered the band for pushing some sort of Christian agenda. “There’s a difference between someone being like, ‘I really don’t like this music, it’s not good and here’s why…’ and saying things that are just flat out false interpretations. That feeling of wanting to defend yourself but also just knowing that the last thing you ever want to do is get into a big defence, even if you’re just trying to straighten out the narrative.”

Being accused of something you feel you didn’t do is the pits. The more you insist you didn’t fart in the elevator, the more people around you confirm their case against you.

Cold War Kids know the feeling oh so well – from day one, their lyrics have been dissected and inspected for meaning that the lead singer insists isn’t there. Experiences like this have had an effect on the meta way that Willet’s lyrics seem to simultaneously critique the band and critique the critic.

Metaphors and piano hooks might not achieve the immediate release that hitting out at naysayers online does, but since opinions and criticism are more common online occurrences than pop ups to earn a million dollars from home, Willet is all too happy avoiding the Twitter antics of other musicians. Besides, music making has created a receptacle for his woes that doesn’t have a 140-character limit. “There are artists who I feel put way too much of their voice into their Twitter account and their social media and it’s like, ‘take all those feelings and put them in a song’.”

And he does. Each song is a coalescence of social commentary, literary figures and an emotional rawness that comes from putting it all on the line. “If you have big dreams the worst thing that can happen is just to sit around talking about them. In entertainment, in music there are all these people who had a chance to do something that just sit around and talk about why the world is wrong for not recognising their talent.”

Cold War Kids play Bluesfest and tour Australia in March.

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together and stop letting people get inside the artistic side, you’re going to get fucked up and you’re going to get transformed without realising you’re being transformed. So, Leave Me Alone is just like, ‘I really want to do it my way’.

HINDS WORDS LIZ SCARF

What’s been a career highlight, so far? Playing Glastonbury because it made history for Glastonbury and for a Spanish band. Never ever in the life of the festival has a Spanish band played one of the main stages, so I walked on stage feeling like, ‘Ok, I’m making history right now.’ It was crazy to live that. We were so beyond psyched. We had never even been to Glastonbury because tickets sell out in like 20 minutes every year.

Prepare to add ‘party with Hinds’ to the top of your bucket list. As if the sound of their album Leave Me Alone weren’t enough of a giveaway, talking to vocalist and guitar player Carlotta Cosials confirmed our suspicions that this Spanish four-piece is more fun than bouncing on a waterbed, armed with a confetti cannon.

What’s something all four members of Hinds agree on? We all love pasta, like any kind of pasta: bolognese, carbonara, even just with pepper and salt. We love pasta.

Oh, and coffee in the morning – that’s a must. One thing we all hate is the cold. We cannot stand the cold – it really turns us unhappy.

How did Leave Me Alone get its name? It’s more of a conceptual name because it has nothing to do with the themes of the songs. We have realised this music industry is a bitch and is a huge machine. If you don’t get your shit

Who would be in your musical supergroup? Julian Casablancas because he’s the best, Mac DeMarco – he’s got awesome melodies, Bob Dylan – to help me with the lyrics and us, Hinds.

Somewhere between recording in sundrench Spain and tearing up Glastonbury, Hinds made garage-rock its bitch.

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How much did living in Madrid influence the album?

It’s an album done completely under the sun and that’s because of Madrid – the blue skies, good weather, easy life and people who are easygoing. I think you really can tell our music is like that.

WORDS LIZ SCARF.

FRANKIE COSMOS Next Thing / Bayonet Suspended over tiny moments before zooming out to reveal the big picture, Frankie Cosmos’ lo-fi pop rarely wastes a word or a note. Never reaching three minutes, each song has a wry wit that offsets the cutesy elements, making them feel as deliberate as sea salt on chocolate.

CLASSIC ALBUM 1966 / THE BEACH BOYS / Pet Sounds / Universal We’re just going to come right out and say it: this is a masterpiece. Don’t argue with us, it’s true.

Recorded and released in 1966, Pet Sounds couldn’t have aged better if it was cryogenically frozen in order to destroy Dr. Evil. Arguably rock music’s first concept album, the lyrics follow a love story from a fresh affair to the inevitable (but no less gutting) breakup. It’s hard to believe that classics like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ were such risks at the time but the melodic soundscapes orchestrated by Brian Wilson were in a world of their own, shocking his band mates, record label and fans. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pet Sounds, Wilson is touring Australia this March and April.

PJ HARVEY The Hope Six Demolition Project / Universal Back with her first record since Let England Shake, Harvey’s ninth studio album is as political as the last, but this time on a global scale.

Recorded from behind one-way glass as part of a public art exhibition, ballsy riffs and defiant lyrics make up another alt-rock protest album for the ages.

SUMMER FLAKE Hello Friends / Rice Is Nice Everyone is a winner when dreamy vocals and '90s alt-rock go head-to-head.

The debut record from homegrown Summer Flake is ten tracks of cheeky, introspective lyrics and reverb-drenched guitars. So turn your oven to a toasty 150 degrees because this one is a slow burner.

YEASAYER Amen & Goodbye / Create / Control A lot can change in four years but swapping shiny art-pop and Pro Tools for psych-rock and a tape recorder is quite a leap, even for Yeasayer. Trippier than ever, the Brooklynites are flexing their pop muscles and the result is more fun than a Mentos in Coke.

AURORA All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friends / Liberator / Glassnote The title's a giveaway but this synthed-out debut will make you feel more emotional than checking your bank balance after a night out. At just 19 years old, Aurora has paired grim lyrics with anthemic choruses and a hint of folk.

DOPE LEMON Honey Bones / EMI Step aside – Aussie music royalty coming through.

Angus Stone has tapped into some of the blissed out, poetic dreaminess of slacker-rockers like Mac DeMarco and is making it his own. Less twee than Stone’s day job, Dope Lemon is, for lack of a better word, just plain cool.

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LEARNING TO READ Australian philosopher, intellectual and all-round brainiac Damon Young teaches us how to read.

Enid Blyton, The Magic Faraway Tree At four, I was given my mother’s Blyton novels. For all the slapping, drenching and scolding, this universe was a perfect escape: a world in which children roamed without supervision, put themselves in danger, and ate ludicrous sweets in absurd lands. (In ‘The Land of Goodies’, one boy is told off for eating a peppermint doorknocker.) The Faraway Tree series can be brutally moralistic, but it taught me something else entirely: the guiltless pleasure of reading, for its own sake.

Jim Starlin (author), Jim Aparo (penciller), Mike DeCarlo (inker), Adrienne Roy (colourist), A Death in the Family This is the Batman story that killed Robin. I was a young teenager, and the Boy Wonder’s death was shocking: beaten by a crowbar, then locked in a room with a bomb. Murders are common in fiction, but this was personal, gruesome and final. I felt initiated into a more adult world, in which everything was up for grabs except happiness (which was impossible). Batman suggested that being broken was normal: the point is to deploy your flaws cannily.

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Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson Dickinson was the princess of homebodies. She spent most days in her second-floor bedroom, descending chiefly for baking and gardening. But her brief, staccato works are profoundly worldly: love, death, friendship, beauty, immortality. One line on forbidden desire is enough to

prompt a novel: ‘How luscious lies within the Pod/ The Pea that Duty locks.’ I read Dickinson’s poems with a new respect: for her craft, and for her white-knuckled devotion to life’s glories.

Henry James, The Golden Bowl The slick, cheating husband is a cheap soap opera trope.

But in The Golden Bowl, Henry James turns Prince Amerigo’s betrayal of Maggie Verver into an intimate study of a woman’s maturation. She becomes artful, canny, and beautifully strong. To enjoy this, I put up with James’ exhausting Victorian prose, which fellow novelist HG Wells described as an elephant trying to pick up a pea. I finished the story with a greater respect for perseverance — the author’s, and the reader’s.

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home I could’ve read Swimming Home as a psychological thriller of sorts: the awkward friction that marrs an English family’s Mediterranean holiday. This short but brilliant novel of a poet’s marriage and family is sophisticated enough to offer plenty of interpretations. But its confrontation with depression, mortality, history, and common human vulnerability — this took more bravery. Levy’s prose is some kind of exotic blade, made fine by folding layer upon layer in extraordinary heat. I needed courage to let it cut me.

The Art of Reading is out March 28.

WORDS DAMON YOUNG. PHOTO STOCKSY.COM.

You may think you already know how to read. You’re reading this right now — unless someone else is reading it to you, in which case congrats on getting your own butler. But get ready to have one of those ‘I’ve been doing this wrong my whole life’ moments, like when you realised glasses lens cleaner is the same thing as Windex, which costs about six times less. (For everyone who didn’t know that already, you’re welcome.) Damon Young, a well-regarded reader and writer, reckons reading is just as hard as writing, and knowing your alphabet isn’t all it takes to read like a pro.

Here are some of the books that taught him how to read, ranging from the simple to the Dickinson.

THE NEST Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, HarperCollins, $29.99 According to Tolstoy, all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The Plumb siblings, a group of middle-aged New Yorkers all with their own financial troubles and glaring personal inadequacies, are unhappy because eldest Leo has blown their inheritance cleaning up after causing a car accident while drunk and high.

D’Aprix Sweeney’s novel is an absorbing narrative driven by a cycle of unmet family expectations, set in a New York she clearly knows like the back of her hand.

WORDS ELEANOR ROBERTSON, AMY HENDERSON.

THE BRICKS THAT BUILT THE HOUSE Kate Tempest, Bloomsbury, $27.99 Kate Tempest is a big deal in Britain, and this novel might be what makes her go global. The Bricks that Built the House is about three London twentysomethings but it’s also about love, drugs, money and the politics of urban life. Every sentence is constructed with a poet’s care and the cumulative effect is like being sprayed right in the face with a fire hose of brief and unpleasant vignettes. Tempest does this for a reason — she makes you appreciate the ways that historical, economic and social forces produce the thousands of small miseries that make up her work. A piece of gum stuck to a grimy footpath acts as an incitement to think about urban decay and gentrification; a bunch of sweaty, depressed nightclubbers stand in for the anxiety produced by modern British employment conditions. This one’s probably in line for some serious prizes.

MINISCAPES Clea Cregan, Hardie Grant, $29.95 This adorable terrarium DIY handbook should come with a warning label, because you will fall in love with the tiny glass vessels filled with miniature plants, polished stones, moss and layers of soil and sand. You’ll search your home for terrarium containers, and you’ll plan a trip to Bunnings to gather all the ingredients for your own. You may even name your first child Terrarium. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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PRECIOUS THINGS Kelly Doust, HarperCollins, $29.99 As glittering as the beaded collar at its heart, Precious Things is a novel that weaves through the ages.

Doust explores the lives of the women whose paths the collar crosses, creating an intimate work on desire, marriage and family, and the circus act of juggling worklife balance. Nullifying the need of your round the world trip, the story soars around the globe, touching down in modern day London and ancient Italy. Doust’s narrative style will get all your sensory systems firing, and her characters recall aspects of the universal feminine archetypes.

THE TURNER HOUSE Angela Flournoy, Black Inc., $32.99 Few novels can get away with the opening involving a fight with a ghost, a three-year-old piddling, and a heap of backchat while still retaining sense. Angela Flournoy does just that in The Turner House, her debut work chronicling the quirky and heart-wrenching lives of the Turner family.

Set in de-industrialised Detroit, the story covers aging, racism and identity without straying into farce. This novel demands your heart. Through the flaws woven into the characters, Flournoy has created a book that radiates humanity.

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Saddle up n00bs, it’s time to ride your Trojan horses out into the wild, wild web.

Hackers (1995) Teen genius Crash Override (Jonny Lee Miller) enjoys rollerblading, eye-popping motorcycle suits, lusting over Angelina Jolie’s lips, and triggering his school’s sprinkler system. When his hacker friends are framed for serious keyboard crimes, he must unite the hacktivists to save them and stop a corporate megalomaniac from capsizing an oil tanker. Because it was the ’90s, there’s a preposterous three-dimensional file system for him to navigate and everyone wears ugly sunnies indoors. Miller and Jolie married shortly after filming wrapped and divorced 18 months later, proving once and for all that logging on to the internet is a bad idea that should be avoided.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) Whoopi Goldberg plays Terry Doolittle, an oddball who works on a computer at the First National Bank (these days her character would be the Wall Street villain for sure). An international spy sends her a cry for help hidden in a Rolling Stones-themed knock-knock joke, and no, we have no idea how that plot point made it past the script editor. Because it’s 1986 and she can’t just Google the song lyrics, she stays up all night listening to Mick Jagger so she can crack the code. After walloping people with fry pans and having half her dress eaten by a hungry shredder, she eventually brings her boy home. Director Penny Marshall went on to produce feelgood mega hits Big and A League of their Own, which

The Matrix (1999) In the future, humans float in amniotic cocoons, plugged into the dreamworld of the Matrix to act as an energy source for rapacious machines. Who knows why they chose human batteries rather than government-subsidised solar panels. A hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves, or as we like to call him, Oldmate Woodface) is trapped until he meets resistance fighter and trench coat fancier Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). For some reason Neo chooses to follow Morpheus instead of living out his life in the simulated bliss of the Matrix, and Reeves spends the rest of the movie struggling to move his facial muscles properly.

Sydney residents will enjoy watching high-octane action scenes shot in their home city.

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WORDS REBECCA DOUGLAS.

makes Jumpin’ Jack Flash essential viewing for the late 20th century film buff.

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WORDS ANDREW HARRISON, ELEANOR ROBERTSON & ANNIE SEBEL.

The Witch ++++ This is a folktale-inspired frightener, minimalistic in approach, which slowly builds on blocks of Puritanism, witchcraft, black magic and possession. Set in 1630 in New England, The Witch follows a family exiled from their fortified village, struggling to survive as they set up a new home. When their youngest is taken into the forest, the family turns on each other and paranoia mounts, as does the unsettling nature of the film. Artful editing and cinematography with a goosebump-inducing score will have you praying for a rogue ringtone to cut the tension.

The Daughter +++ Set in a small town where the local sawmill is closing, there’s a heavy blanket hanging over two families. As secrets unfold and damage ripples out, the intensity amplifies in this atmospheric and beautifully shot drama. Keep an eye out for Odessa Young (as teenager Hedvig), who holds her own against Geoffrey Rush, Miranda Otto and Ewen Leslie.

Sherpa +++ Although Sherpa is set on Mount Everest, it’s less the focus of this tense documentary and more the setting of the world’s highest workplace dispute. Since the 1950s the Sherpas have guided foreigners on the climb, putting themselves in danger for low pay. They’re getting sick of it, and filmmaker Jennifer Peedom was there to capture their struggle.

A Bigger Splash +++ A stylish, simmering thriller that mixes spectacular scenery with a talented cast. Tilda Swinton plays a rock star hiding away with her documentarymaking partner, when their world is shaken up by a visit from her former lover (Ralph Fiennes) and his daughter (Dakota Johnson). Cue conflict, hedonism and one amazing dance scene, with Fiennes stealing the show.

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This page: Karen Walker top, $365. Country Road blazer, $349.

Opposite Page: Iris & Ink jumpsuit from The Outnet, $282. Issey Miyake hat from Poepke, $940.

Celine shoes from David Jones, $1,249 (worn throughout).

BLONDE PHOTOS JOSHUA HEATH FASHION NICKI COLBRAN

Opposite page: Jade (left): Acne shirt, $500, and belt, $220 (worn as neck tie).

Third Form pants, $269.

Steffi (right): Cotton On leggings, $24.95. Country Road blazer, $349. By Nye neck piece, $110.

This page: Country Road blazer, $349. By Nye neck piece, $110. Topshop T-shirt, $30. Opposite page: Topman shirt, $70.

Topshop pants, $94.95.

This page: Calvin Klein shirt, $89.95. Acne jeans, $300. Opposite page: Steffi (left): Sportmax jacket, $1,395. Jade (right): Acne coat, $930.

HAIR & MAKE-UP CORINNA WILMSHURST USING M.A.C COSMETICS (WORK AGENCY). MODELS JADE (IMG MODELS) & STEFFI (PRISCILLA’S). PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT ZICO O'NEILL. FASHION ASSISTANT EMILY YUEN.

This page: Acne jacket, $3,200. Opposite page: Jac+ Jack shirt, $260.

Asos jacket, $89.84.

Route 66 bomber, $550.

Acne skirt, $2,750. Zara boots, $179.

KOMOREBI PHOTOS SASKIA WILSON FASHION KAILA MATTHEWS

This page: Topshop jumpsuit, $139.95, and top, $34.95. Karen Walker necklace, $2,409, and gold heart earrings, $1,229.

Sarah & Sebastian rings, $260 (middle finger, right hand), $680 (ring finger, right hand), $1,650 (middle finger, left hand), $1450 (index finger, left hand).

Oppostie page: Isabel Marant Etoile jacket, $545 and dress, $770, from Incu (tie for dress worn around neck). Vale jeans, $220.

This page: Acne dress, $2,550. Marimekko pants, $350.

Opposite page: Zimmermann playsuit, $550.

This page: Karen Walker jacket, $2,135, and pants, $455. Sandro Paris top, $290.

Opposite page: Romance was Born blouse, $480.

This page: Isabel Marant Etoile jacket, $545, and dress, $770, from Incu (dress tie worn around neck). Vale jeans, $220.

In God We Trust necklace from The Standard Store, $60.

Opposite page: Zimmermann jacket, $1,500.

This page: Acne trench, $1,700. Matin jumpsuit, $420. Zara boots, $179.

Opposite page: Emma Mulholland jumper, $250. Thursday.Sunday jeans, $310. In God We Trust necklace from The Standard Store, $60.

MAKE-UP CORINNA WILMSHURST USING M.A.C COSMETICS. HAIR MANDY KINGSMAN USING LA BIOSTHETIQUE AND CLOUD NINE. MODEL TESS ANGEL (PRISCILLA’S). PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT DARYL ORILLAZA.

IN THE SHADOWS Autumnal tones from your fingers to your toes.

PHOTOS JAMES TOLICH MANICURE THE NAIL LAB ART DIRECTION ISABELLA SCHIMID

TOP: Kester Black in Conquer Blonde, $20.

Formula X in Delightful, $17. Smith & Cult in Feed The Rich, $18. M.A.C Cosmetics in Snazzy Hound, $22. OPI in Nein Nein Nein Ok Fine, $19.95. Sephora in Hyde Park Place, $4. Nails Inc Gel Effect in Beylin Underground, $26.95.

BOTTOM: The Nail Lab in Hudson, $15.

OPPOSITE: Smith & Cult in Lo-Fi, $18.

TOP: Kester Black in Cerulean, $20.

BOTTOM: Butter London in Slapper, $22. Kester Black in Bubblegum, $20.

Nails Inc in Bruton Mews, $24.95. Kester Black in Forest, $20. OPI in Jade is the New Black, $19.95.

M.A.C Cosmetics in Unzipped, $22.

OPPOSITE: Kester Black Pardon hydrating cream, $32. Butter London in Yummy Mummy, $22. Max Factor in Hot Coco, $5.95.

Mecca Cosmetica in Rosaline, $22. Kester Black in Buttercream, $20.

M.A.C Cosmetics in Delicate, $22.

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BODHA Instead of screaming into a pillow because you just can’t take it anymore, why not put on that Enya CD you deny owning, light your oil burner and plop one of these cute little pillows ($32) on your peepers. The gentle aromatherapy scents and soothing acupressure on your eye sockets will help you bliss out and pretend that idiot you hate has decided to start a new life in a different time zone. See them all at bodhamodernwellness.com.

It’s time to pull your socks up, get your act together and straighten yourself out. Eleven Australia has just released a new flat iron ($249.95) that straightens and curls, which is perfect if you’re an indecisive person with uncooperative hair. Travel bugs can take this new friend with them everywhere – universal voltage, baby. Take a look at elevenaustralia.com/new-flat-iron.

LANOLIPS

BKR WATER BOTTLES If you like to stay hydrated but don’t like carrying an old Pump bottle that tastes like new car smell, BKR could be for you. These bottles are cute pastels, plus you can get 250ml/500ml depending on how thirsty you are. Pick one at mybkr.com.

Everyone has a favourite product they’re an evangelist for. You know the lines: ‘I reattached my severed leg! I rubbed it on a lamp and a genie came out! If everyone used this, we’d have world peace!’ Unless your product is Lanolips lanolin ointment ($17.95), you’re wrong. You could rub this on a lizard’s elbows and they’d become baby-soft (don’t picture that image unless you want to). See more at lanolips.com.

L'OCCITANE Ever wanted to dip your dry hands straight into a vat of butter, or is that just us?

L’Occitane’s heavenly shea butter hand cream ($42) is the next best thing. You can’t lick it off your hands, but it won’t clog your arteries. Get the good stuff at au.loccitane.com.

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SODA & CO. In a dimension far away, there’s a huge pile of fluff-encrusted tubes, and scummy pots with worn-off labels; that’s all your lost lip balms. You could start building a tricked-out space ship, or you could buy this minty balm ($8.95) from Soda & Co. at sodaandco.com.

THE STABLES SYDNEY at Royal Randwick Located on the top floor of the Queen Elizabeth II Grandstand, this premier venue exudes refined elegance. Designed by awarding-winning Woods Bagot architects and bespoke furnishings from Coco Republic, The Stables offers an array of entertaining spaces, with commanding views across the racecourse, Centennial Parklands and surrounding city skyline.

The Stables is perfect for luxury events, cocktail functions, conferences, weddings and engagements.

P 02 9663 8478 | E events@australianturfclub.com.au australianturfclub.com.au/thestables

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FIGHT LIKE A GIRL As kids we were taught not to fight, but for many women stepping in the ring (or onto the mat) has been life-changing.

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PHOTO STOCKSY.COM.

WORDS JO STEWART

Apart from pulling a hammy in the backyard while trying to imitate a Jean-Claude Van Damme-style roundhouse kick, most of us don’t know much in the way of martial arts. But with increased physical strength, improved balance and greater flexibility all reported benefits of practising, this once male-dominated world is attracting women fighters keen on cultivating a stronger mind, body and spirit (and kicking some good old fashioned butt while at it). From the intense floor wrestling of judo to the brutal knockouts of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), there’s a martial art to suit all of us – male or female, tall or short, timid or aggressive, graceful or terminally awkward.

Old school style A world away from gym workouts like Boxercise and Tae Bo (whatever happened to Tae Bo?), there are many forms of martial arts that draw on hundreds of years of collective wisdom. Karate, Wing Chun kung fu, judo and taekwondo are all martial arts that have been introduced to the West from Asia and now attract female competitors at all levels.

Hailing from Japan, judo is an Olympic sport that has a strong base of female participants. Judo doesn’t involve any punching or kicking. Instead, its focus is on grappling, throwing and pinning your opponent to the floor. Considered one of the safest contact sports, judo was traditionally men-only. While there’s no kicking or punching, it’s still a demanding sport and if you’re in doubt of that then consider that world famous Mixed Martial Artist and all-round tough gal Ronda Rousey has trained in judo since she was 11, winning a bronze medal in judo when representing America at the 2008 Olympics. Judo is bad ass. End of story.

Wing Chun kung fu is a Chinese martial art that also offers many benefits for women. Popularised by Bruce Lee back in the 70s, Wing Chun aims to increase physical, mental and spiritual awareness through cultivating balance, strength and sensitivity.

Ee-Leng Chang of Melbourne has been training in Wing Chun for 12 years. Growing up on a steady diet of kung fu movies, Chang thinks that her training has helped her grow in confidence and learn that age-old lesson: “[It’s] okay to suck at something when you first start doing it.” Chang believes women can learn much from training in Wing Chun.

“Do it, you won’t regret it. If you don’t feel comfortable training with men, try out some women’s classes first.

But it’s important that you eventually train with everyone because you’ll never learn properly unless you’re training with different kinds of people,” says Chang. “I’ve never met anyone who trained martial arts who was a dickhead. They might have started out being one, but they either don’t stay for long or they realise they have to stop being a dickhead.”

Fusion fighting Call it the Ronda Rousey effect, but Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has suddenly gone from being a scary sport lurking on the fringes of society to a multimillion dollar celebrity phenomenon. Behind the media circus and over-the-top hype of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), MMA is merely a new way of fighting that incorporates elements

borrowed from many different martial arts and sports, including kickboxing, boxing and judo. A full contact combat sport, MMA is not for the faint-hearted, with many people believing that this form of cage fighting is sanctioned barbarity. Regardless, MMA is one of the fastest growing sports in America, if not the world, and women represent a good proportion of both competitors and spectators.

If MMA scares the bejesus out of you, then Brazilian jiu-jitsu might be a good alternative. Brazilian jiu-jitsu was created when jiu-jitsu found its way to Brazilian shores from Japan in the early 1900s. In Brazil it underwent an evolution, diverging from traditional jiu-jitsu to incorporate elements of Brazilian culture. With a focus on ground fighting, Brazilian jiu-jitsu allows smaller opponents to overpower larger opponents by using their own energy against them rather than attempting to counter it head-on.

Alicia Carrera of Melbourne has been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for four years and believes it’s ideal for women. “When jiu-jitsu was first brought to Brazil it was adapted for smaller fighters. It’s almost made for women because we are smaller than most men and we can still be dominant fighters,” says Carrera. Since starting her training, Carrera has seen huge changes in her life. “I’ve never been an overly aggressive person but after starting Brazilian jiu-jitsu I’ve been much calmer and am able to handle anger in a healthier way because I have an outlet. I’m in the best shape of my life and I’ve found a community where I have made some of my best friends,” says Carrera.

In the ring As in MMA, there are many female competitors in sports that involve hand-to-hand combat fighting, with boxing, kickboxing and Muay Thai all attracting female fighters.

While it may sound like a cocktail garnished with a paper umbrella, Muay Thai is Thailand’s answer to kickboxing.

Adored by the King of Thailand, it’s referred to as ‘The Art of Eight Limbs’: shins, elbows, fists, feet and knees are all used to bring down an opponent. Muay Thai fighters believe their body is the ultimate weapon, and use it to destroy opponents in the ring. Thanks to a growing fanbase, Muay Thai is no longer a sport confined to Thailand, with schools offering training all over the world. Female Muay Thai fighters may be in the minority, but with a growing list of women taking up the sport, Muay Thai’s star is on the rise.

Boxing may not be a martial art, but it is a maledominated sport that women are now able to compete in at an Olympic level. Women’s boxing debuted at the London Olympics in 2012, where Great Britain’s Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing title. Over the years women’s boxing has attracted a fair amount of controversy, with many dinosaurs declaring the sport too brutal for ladies, who would be better off doing a bit of competitive lace tatting. Cringe. Post-victory, Adams received a fair amount of praise and admiration, but also copped a bit of negativity from people who believe women are too delicate to box. Double cringe. She returned fire with a simple statement as powerful as her devastating left hook: “Women should be able to do any sport they choose.”

Amen to that, Nicola.

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CROSTINI WITH PEPERONATA A simple dish of stewed capsicums with capers and black olives breaks out the party poppers and streamers to welcome you to the flavour party.

PHOTOS LAUREN BAMFORD WORDS LOUISE BOSSIO GIGOVIC STYLING JACINTA MOORE

This simple dish is not one to miss when capsicums are at their peak. The most divine richness of flavour develops when the capsicums slowly collapse under the heat and meld into silky perfection with the oil and fresh tomato.

Beyond its depth of flavour, it’s a dish you will keep returning to because of its versatility. It teams well with fresh cheese as a snack, adds a flavour punch to your morning eggs and makes for a quick and tasty dinner when stirred through pasta. You can make it in big batches and store it in jars, or keep in the refrigerator if eaten within a few days.

1 loaf of bread, baguette or ciabatta ¼ cup olive oil 2 tbsp butter 1 clove garlic 3 large red capsciums 1 large yellow capsicum 500g ripe tomatoes 80g black olives 30g capers

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1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Deseed the capscicums and slice lengthways – about 1cm in width. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy-based pan and sauté the garlic until lightly golden. Add the capsicum, stir and cook over a medium heat for 15 minutes with the lid on.

Cover the tomatoes in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then plunge in cold water. Remove the skins and roughly chop. Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients to the pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste and simmer for a further 30 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated (the consistency should be thick and silky, not runny). Stir through the vinegar. Cut bread into slices and grill. Spoon the peperonata on top and serve. It is delicious warm or cold.

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FEEL THE BREEZE The balcony of your dreams is hiding out at stylist and macramé wiz Jessi Deakin's house.

PHOTOS LYNDEN FOSS STYLING TAHNEE CARROLL

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Home Sweet Home My home is in Oyster Bay, which is in the Sutherland Shire in Sydney. I love how peaceful and quiet the area is and the family home I grew up in is just five minutes down the road, so I have a lot of memories and friends in the area. I live with my partner, Adam and our daughter (dog, laughs), Bindi. Adam is a sales manager in the advertising industry. Bindi spends her days sleeping, eating and chasing birds.

Dreamcatcher Dreamcatcher Designs came about by accident, really. I originally registered the business name during my studies at International School of Colour & Design, intending for it to become an interior styling business. However, I started dabbling in a bit of macramé as a hobby (taught by my mother) and all of a sudden people were interested in purchasing my pieces. I then set up an Etsy shop under the same business name and it just rolled out organically from there.

Favourite Work Project A tie between the custom wall hangings I made for all the Guess store windows across Australia for the Gigi Hadid campaign, and the custom wedding arch I created for the Spell Byron Bay pop up shop at Splendour In The Grass last year. They set it up on a beautiful bohemian day bed in the middle of the muddy music festival and used it as a photo booth.

Best DIY In The House I love the custom macramé arch I made that separates my kitchen and dining.

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Fave Space My balcony. Sit and chill out while enjoying the view. It is so quiet on the river, you can hear fish jumping in the water.

Close To My Heart My most treasured items are the ones that cost me nothing but time and perseverance, like my vintage cane lounge set that was rescued from a council clean-up. I spent weeks sanding back, repainting and recovering.

Typical Day By day I work full time as a property stylist at Bowerbird Interiors, dressing properties that are about to go up for sale to ensure they reach their full sales potential. By night, I work on my macramé orders and occasionally eat dinner and sleep. Just kidding, I never miss a meal!

What I Wish I Knew Five Years Ago… How to macramé! I could've gotten myself a head start in the game!

FAST FIVE Fave weekend activity Scouting markets for bargains and unique finds or making music with Adam.

Fave movie genre Comedy.

Fave styling tip If you genuinely love it, buy it! If you're only interested because it's 'on trend', leave it behind as you will most likely be sick of it in a few months.

Fave comfort food Nutella.

Fave music to dance to Anything from the '80s or '90s.

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Home to the old KGB headquarters, the seat of Russia’s political power, and borscht – so much borscht. Moscow, we got your number.

WORDS NINA KARNIKOWSKI

Fur hats, wooden dolls, spies, vodka and blinis. That’s it, right? Weeell, not really. Peek over the stereotypes’ shoulders and you’ll find that Russia’s big bad capital is also the place to have your valenki (Russian felt boots) blown off by some of the world’s kookiest architecture, get a firsthand lesson in the country’s communist history, and spend a night at the ballet that’ll leave you feeling posher than if you’d just eaten a tin of Beluga caviar inside a velvetupholstered Porsche. Which is actually something you might do while you’re in Moscow. Yep, this sprawling metropolis of more than 10 million people is a weird and wild place.

Simply Red The first thing you’ll want to do when you arrive in Moscow, other than down another vodka shot (go on, you’re not in the vodka capital of the world every day), is take a selfie in front of St Basil’s Cathedral. Get over to Red Square in the city’s geographical heart, pass the Lenin and Stalin impersonators at the entrance, and take your spot in the colossal paved square among the pigeons and tourists.

You’ll wonder how many vodka shots the architect was riding on when he designed this candy-coloured, oniondomed cathedral in the 16th century. And when you snap that selfie, remember that Russians don’t smile unless they’ve just won the lotto; smiling too much is indicative of a weak character.

Then, chuck on your tourist Birkenstocks (because you’ll be here in summer if you’ve got any sense – winters get down to 40 below zero) to gawp at the ochre-coloured State History Museum, with its mass of jagged towers and delicate white rooftops that look like they’ve been dusted with snow.

It’s impressive even if you don’t head inside to check out the collection of millions of artefacts, which span the entire Russian empire from the Stone Age onwards. Sandwiched between these two you’ll find Lenin’s tomb, where the father of the Russian revolution’s embalmed body has creepily lain under glass since his death in 1924; plus the ostentatious 19th century GUM shopping arcade, which is suicide if you’re

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"MOSCOW'S METRO STATIONS LOOK LIKE CATHEDRALS; STALIN BUILT THEM AS PALACES FOR THE PEOPLE DURING THE SOVIET ERA." on a budget but worth a visit just to see the sexy roof, crafted from 20,000 panes of glass.

Back In The USSR Around the corner from Red Square you’ll find the Kremlin, the centre of Russian political power. As you walk through this fortified complex, passing the yellow and white palaces and gold-domed cathedrals that look like they’ve been topped with Hershey’s Kisses, you may find yourself daydreaming a shirtless Putin thundering by bareback on a stallion. Hate to burst your bubble but this isn’t something you’ll see today, at least not in the flesh; however, there are oodles of stalls around town selling tees with this image splashed across them.

If you want to be a total ponce head across the road to the historic Bolshoi Theatre, with its glitzy red and gold auditorium, and take in a quick performance from the Imperial Ballet. Or walk five minutes down the street to Lubyanka Square, the former headquarters of the KGB, the world’s largest spy and state-security machine. Don’t resist embarrassing yourself with a few commando rolls outside the massive yellow brick building as you play out your own Cold War era Bond fantasy, imagining the spies who once sat inside hatching plots and polishing their Kalashnikovs.

As Above, So Below Time to embrace your inner moleman and head underground to see Moscow’s opulent metro system.

You’d be right in thinking some of the 180 stations look more like cathedrals; they were built as ‘palaces for the people’ by Stalin during the Soviet era. You’ll see stations with unpronounceable names like Komsomolskaya, with its marble pillars, high sunflower-yellow stucco ceilings and brass chandeliers; or Revolution Station, which packs in more than 70 life-sized bronze sculptures of Russian revolutionaries (including four canine comrades you can pat on the nose for good luck). You’ll need all the luck you can get to decipher the Cyrillic text on all the station signs, unless you thought way, way ahead and learnt fluent Russian for your trip. English speakers are pretty thin on the ground, so you’ll probably want to buddy up to a local or hire a guide to avoid accidentally winding up in Kazakhstan.

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Hip Areas Your feet are aching, you’re completely befuddled by all the architecture and you can’t tell your Pushkins from your Putins any more. There’s only one logical thing to do: find

a place to drink more vodka. And where better than the Winzavod, a former wine-bottling plant behind Kurskaya train station, and now the place to be in Moscow’s growing contemporary arts scene. This reclaimed industrial area, Moscow’s answer to New York’s Meatpacking District, is where you’ll find four of the country’s best contemporary galleries, artists’ and photography studios. Plus there’s concept store Cara & Co., boutiques, and hip art cafes where you can sip the afternoon away while keeping one eye out for the city’s rich and notorious.

If you want to catch the sunset, the slick TimeOut rooftop bar above the quirky Peking Hotel (they rent rooms by the hour, if you’re picking up what we’re laying down), is the perfect spot to watch that big orange ball do its thing over the city. To get amongst the hot young Muscovites, head over to hip, un-touristy Patriarch’s Pond, an area centered on a square-shaped pond (duh), and roam the narrow backstreets lined with hip restaurants, boutiques and private art galleries. Maybe you’ll end the night in one of Moscow’s nightclubs (try Strelka bar, overlooking the Moskva River, and ARMA17), glow sticks in hand, feeling fabulous and sexy even though by this hour you’ll likely have clumps of stroganoff stuck in your hair. Or maybe you’ll take the classy route and head back to Red Square to see St Basil’s Cathedral lit up like an Ibiza rave. Or maybe, just maybe, you’ll end up eating a tin of Beluga caviar inside a velvet-upholstered Porsche.

Stay For Russian opulence and over-the-topness, look to the Art Nouveau-style Hotel Metropol. Five minutes’ walk from Red Square, this is the kind of joint that serves up live harp music, caviar and Prosecco at breakfast, and that uses enough marble, chandeliers and stained glass to make a Russian oligarch uncomfortable. You might not normally be a fan of big hotels – there are 365 rooms here – but big just works in Russia.

Eat Lavkalavka, a cafe on Petrovka Street, sources all its seasonal, organic produce from more than 36 organic or biodynamic Russian farms, and you can gobble it all down in their garden. To feel like you’re dining in a Russian aristocrat’s home circa 1825, head to Café Pushkin for some blinchiki (Russian pancakes), borscht, pelmeni dumplings and fancy schmancy service, all washed down with – yep, you got it – some more voddy.

PHOTOS NINA KARNIKOWSKI AND ISTOCK.

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PHOTO MOLLY STEELE.

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CYNDI LAUPER She’s an Oscar shy of an EGOT and is the #1 cause of ankle sprains at karaoke. We chat with the inimitable queen of the eighties.

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“I got a big mouth,” says Cyndi Lauper, in her native New York accent. “I’m not afraid of nuthin.” And she never has been. One of the music legend’s earliest memories is as a two-and-a-half year old, going right up to a dog’s face and sizing him up. “I would try to look inside, go right up to the dog, or any animal, like cats – a lot of cats, and I got scratched and bit a lot, but it never stopped me because I was just curious. I wanted them to see who I was inside, and I was going to see who they was, but they didn’t like it.

I had a problem with boundaries from a very young age,” she laughs.

Her brazen nature has been her constant weapon, one

she hasn’t put down since leaving home at 17 to escape an abusive stepfather; she hitchhiked between runaway shelters, working odd jobs at racetracks and diners. That same steel soul was there when her record label handed her a song about a suave bro who marinates himself in hot babes every other night, and she scoffed and re-worked the lyrics into the beloved feminist karaoke anthem ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. It was the first domino down in a 30-year trail of success that’s seen her earn two Grammys, an Emmy for her acting on Mad About You, and a Tony for writing the original score to the Broadway hit Kinky Boots. Her latest album Detour (out 6 May) covers country classics with collaborators like Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Jewel – who can yodel with such vigour it should require a warning on the CD cover to protect the frail and pregnant.

Lauper’s music game is strong, but her equally important legacy may be True Colors, a 30-bed supported residence in Harlem that she co-founded after learning 40 per cent of all homeless youth identify as LGBT. It’s this that Lauper is referring to in our discussion when she says she’s not afraid of anything. “You have to understand that I grew up in the Civil Rights Movement, so I heard all the stories about why you couldn’t have a black person live next door…

So when I grew up and I started to hear all this stuff about the LGBT, I’m like, ‘Oh, I heard this record before, and it’s a crock,’” she says.

“So yeah, I stick up for them. I feel they are voiceless, especially the homeless LGBT youth, because they’re the most vulnerable. And who is going to stick up and open their big mouth? I got a big mouth. I’m not afraid of nuthin.”

WORDS JANA ROOSE. PHOTO GETTY IMAGES.

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by Kevin M.

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