It’s that time of the year again, when we can over indulge ourselves with chocolate decadence and be free from the impending guilt, well, almost. While chocolate eggs and bunnies steal the limelight at Easter time, the Australian Bilby shapes our national Easter treat. For an extra sweet Easter gift, visit Darrell Lea and take home a beautiful Easter Bilby. Darrell Lea has been producing and selling bilby shaped chocolate creations since 1994, and donate all proceeds to the Save the Bilby Fund to protect the 6000 bilbies left in Australia.
Bilbies are an enchanting little animal, with large ears, a silky coat and a long tail, they are endangered in Queensland, declared vulnerable throughout the country. Like many native animals, bilbies must compete with introduced animals, such as rabbits and cattle for their food, and their homes have been destroyed by development. Continue reading ‘move over easter bunny, here comes the easter bilby’
There are many elements to Konstantina Mittas that make her remarkable. For a start, the intrepid Sydney clothing designer comes across as supremely down-to-earth and self-effacing yet her garments take on a distinctly more dramatic and unpredictable edge. From the Winged Dress to the Distressed Tank and the Helena Corset, each Konstantina Mittas piece boldly redirects the body’s contours – hips, shoulders and derrieres (think crow wings, voluminous sleeves and draped bustles). The result is a strangely intoxicating mix of femininity, strength and, always, beauty. With just four years in the game and as many collections to her name (the fifth is in the wings), Konstantina says she feels blessed that industry bigwigs understand her vision, and like what they see. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – konstantina mittas’
If there were such a thing as cheese royalty, Will Studd would be king. Pushing the cause of good cheese in Australia and globally, this exalted throne comes with loyal devotees (including a potential television audience of 380-million cheese enthusiasts watching his series Cheese Slices) but also detractors (for championing the cause of raw-milk cheese, he’s endured court cases, threats of jail and a $100,000 fine, and the callous label “cheese terrorist”). Distributing world cheeses and working to enhance our local industry since his arrival in the early 1980s, Will famously staged a funeral for a shipment of Roquefort cheese he imported in 2002, which was ordered by the authorities to be destroyed. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – will studd’
Southerners; avert your eyes and block your ears. This morning I awoke to find my boyfriend had left the sprinkler running overnight. In other states, this would generate extreme panic, the wrath of neighbours and possibly legal action. Initially I felt a wave of remorse and guilt; however, as we live in a city without water restrictions, we shrugged our shoulders and continued on with our lives. Eighteen months ago I moved from Brisbane to Darwin as a water conscious, frugal consumer of H20. I dutifully used a water timer while showering. I let my car become stained with dust and caked with mud in the name of water conservation. I even recycled the used water from my washing machine to use on the garden. Yet I am now a shadow of my former self. I have become acclimatised to the Territory’s ways. Continue reading ‘The big wet’
Among architect Andrew Maynard’s proudest work is his CV08, the suburb-eating robot. It’s a conceptual structure designed to consume and recycle the Australian outer suburbs – predicted to be abandoned and decay with the demise of cars as the world runs out of oil – before the robot terra-forms the earth with native flora and fauna. While much of his work packs a socio-political or environmental statement, the Melbourne-based architect eschews the label ‘green’, given its commercialisation in recent times. For Maynard Architects, being green is simply intrinsic to good design.
Continue reading ‘national dreamer – andrew maynard’
Australians – being adventurous, wide-eyed types – sometimes wish they were European simply for the chance to hop, skip or Eurotrain their way in and out of different cultures. Thanks to keen foodie, journalist and entrepreneur Maeve O’Meara, a rich world of cultures has been revealed to us within easy reach and without a bout of jet lag. Maeve’s Gourmet Safaris and Gorgeous Safaris, along with her television series Food Safari, discover the unsung heroes and heroines of the national food scene and connect them on a personal level with their consumers – all in the name of discovering new cuisine. Of course, there’s a big world out there so she also explores Greece, Mexico, Vietnam and other hot spots. If success is measured in bringing joy to people, Maeve believes she’s on the right track. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – maeve o’meara’
Just over five years ago, Kate Bezar’s life was at a crossroads. Growing up in New Zealand before moving to Australia, she had embarked on a career that was both lucrative and allowed her to travel the world, but there was one key ingredient missing: it neither nourished her soul nor fuelled passion within her. But then a night came that would change her life, and put her on a path that not only enabled her to live her life with passion and purpose, but would also inspire thousands of other people across the world to do the same. For it was on that fateful night that the beloved quarterly magazine Dumbo Feather, Pass it On was born. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – kate bezar’
In recognition of the power of visual communication, Greenpeace Australia in collaboration with The University of South Australia, has launched The Greenpeace Design Awards. The brief is to design an A4 poster that delivers the message ‘Be a Part of the Action’. Entries are open until June 15, from when 8 judges will cut the cream from the clutter. Kudos not coins will be bestowed upon the winning entry, which will be considered for use in major Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigns. Look here and here to start the cogs turning. Good luck!
Common human sense tells us that if we had the opportunity to save someone’s life we would. But if that life is intangible; something that we can’t see right in front of us, but rather far off in a distant land that most of us will never set foot on, does that change our perspective? What gives one human life greater value than another? It is these ethical conundrums that Australian philosopher, ethicist and activist Peter Singer is currently presenting to the world with his newest book, The Life You Can Save. Not only does he present a clear and simple solution to eradicating global poverty, but he also shows us that we have a moral obligation to be part of it. Peter has calculated that, by allocating just one percent of our annual income to helping to relieve poverty and donating to organisations such as Oxfam, we can almost rid the world of poverty completely. But the challenge is changing the way people think when it comes to giving to charity. To help them evolve from a paradigm of pure self-interest to one of ‘enlightened self-interest’, where they can appreciate the value of spending money on helping a starving family in Africa or India, rather than on disposable material possessions. Since releasing The Life You Can Save earlier this year, Peter has received strong support across the globe, evident on the book’s accompanying website, which encourages people to publicly pledge their one percent and monitors the steadily rising number of pledges. But Peter has also received a great criticism for the book – something he knows well having dedicated his life to speaking up, often controversially, on socially sensitive ethical topics such as abortion, euthanasia and animal rights. At 62, one might think that for this affable, engaging philosopher, enduring several decades of such criticism and controversy might be too much to bear. Not the case, he says, for he continues to be driven by an unwavering conviction that one person really can make the world a better place.
Continue reading ‘national dreamer – peter singer’
A chat with Nicholas Van Messner, one half of Aussie fashion label, LIFEwithBIRD, is a reminder life can play out like an impromptu visit to the casino: big wins come from big risks. Throw spare change on the table and your biggest hope is to earn the taxi ride home. When Nicholas met Bridget McCall (a.k.a. Bird) in 2002, the two “clicked” and launched LIFEwithBIRD the same year. The safe hand would have been to start it small but the duo went global “straight off the bat”. After six years in the industry, the partners in business and in life show how it’s possible to take an idea from a bedroom floor to a bold international business. You just need a healthy dose of strong will, a bucket load of bravado and a heart that is capable of handling rejection. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – nicholas van messner’
It can take an artist many years to realise their creative ambitions, to share their ideas with the world. In today’s hyper-competitive publishing world, most don’t make it past the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts. But for British-born Graeme Base, still green and recently fired from his third advertising job (what was, to Graeme, a mindless and stressful existence), his is a different story. At age 25, his prolific career in picture books was launched when the first manuscript he ever submitted – a lavishly illustrated, rhyming tale about a kangaroo-riding grandma in the Australian outback – was accepted without hesitation.
Continue reading ‘national dreamer – graeme base’
The bustling streets of Hanoi are a chaos of car horns beeping, animated merchants bartering and the general buzz that comes with any Asian metropolis. Amongst the chaos sits a young girl, seated on the ground with a cardboard box in front of her lined with cups of tea. She brushes her stringy hair out of her eyes with a grubby hand and stares up at you – her dark brown eyes exuding exhaustion, pleading for you to make the small purchase that could be the difference between her family having food on the table that night or going hungry. This delicate toeing of the poverty line is a familiar scenario for many of Hanoi’s youth, who are sent from their homes in the Vietnamese countryside to earn a living to support their families. Very few of these young people are equipped with an adequate education and their only means of survival is to earn pittance selling postcards, cups of tea or even chewing gum. Fortunately for many of the youth struggling to survive on the streets of Hanoi, their life paths have taken a significant turn for the better, thanks to the efforts of Tracey Lister and Jimmy Pham. Together, Tracey and Jimmy have grown KOTO Hanoi Restaurant and Training School, which teaches street kids the necessary hospitality and life skills that will equip them for a path of success rather than just survival. Tracey now captures the spirit of KOTO and the Vietnamese culture with her beautiful recipe book KOTO: A Culinary Journey through Vietnam.
Continue reading ‘national dreamer – tracey lister’
Imagination is a thing of beauty. The true magic of someone who possesses it is their uncanny ability to envision something beautiful out of nothing – a majestic house from a simple cardboard box, a glorious ball gown from an unassuming scrap of fabric. Inspiration is where you find it, and for Catherine Martin – it’s everywhere. Whether it be in her own family heritage, the everyday world that surrounds her, the two children she loves so fiercely or in the unique perspective on life that occupies the mind of her husband, Baz Luhrmann, inspiration for Catherine is limited only by the confines of her own imagination. From designing the costumes and sets of iconic films such as Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, to spreading her wings into the realm of homewares with a new range of wallpapers, paints and rugs, Catherine continues to weave into the world an abundance of creativity and colour. And as she and Baz lovingly place the final touches on the eagerly anticipated film Australia, Catherine’s imagination is in full flight.
Continue reading ‘national dreamer – catherine martin’
After blowing out to 120kg while working in New York, James Miller returned to Australia inspired by one of the few healthy lunch options he could find in the Big Apple – a salad deli tacked on to the local sandwich shop attracting queues even in winter. Of a range of business ideas James discussed with friend Luke Baylis, who’d developed similarly poor eating habits in the US, this was the one that just seemed to stick. Now, amidst the bright-lights marketing jungle of fast-food chains peddling free toys with meals and pulling nutritionally irresponsible four-meat-patty stunts, the lads’ homegrown concept salad store is an optimistic beacon of health, serving up satiating meals that befit their SumoSalad title. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – james miller’
Two’s company; three’s a crowd. So what does four make? If the four are the ‘Fat 4’ – Melbourne fashion retailers Rachael Cotra, Sarah Hamilton, Kym Purtell and Bianca Wiegard of the iconic Fat boutiques – it makes a poetic creative synergy still thriving ten years after they opened their first store in Fitzroy. Here, they provide a forum for promising young designers that was once missing in an otherwise burgeoning music, art and cultural scene. With little more than $6,000 among them, the Fat ‘thing’ – something unattainable, based on gut feeling and intuition, unable to be replicated – was conceived.
Continue reading ‘national story – the fat 4′
As reported here on Street Editors in July, the annual Brightest Young Minds (BYM) Summit was held in Sydney, hosting 100 of the nation’s emerging leaders in creativity, technology, science, humanities, media and other sectors. Their task was to innovate and collaborate to develop eight new social innovation concepts in five exhausting days, with these ideas pitched to fellow delegates, sponsors and investors on the final night.
For some of these delegates, one of the more important items on the agenda is to raise funds for the BYM Foundation so it can continue its good work in sponsoring all delegates to attend the summit. So they have rallied together to offer their most valuable asset: the power of 10 bright young minds consulting for 10 hours each to the highest bidder. Offering this package through eBay, they are targeting anyone wanting to inject a bit of creativity into a business idea, attract a new generation of enthusiastic employees or help someone kick-start their own social entrepreneurship venture; all money raised in this venture will go back to the BYM Foundation.
If bidding on E-bay isn’t your style, but you would like to support Australia’s new generation of leaders, you can make a secure contribution online, or register to find out more about next year’s summit.
A fleeting moment is all that’s needed to change the course of life. Advertising dynamo Todd Sampson’s watershed was an ear-opening lecture for one of his MBA classes. If Todd’s regular marketing lecturer hadn’t broken her back and invited the creative director of an ad agency to give the lecture in her absence, Todd might have held different ambitions. As destiny would have it, this sharp Nova Scotian – recipient of a full college scholarship, current CEO of ad agency Leo Burnett Sydney, co-creator of Earth Hour, doting father and part of ABC’s The Gruen Transfer’s brain trust – has done his parents, who taught him that education was his plane ticket to a life outside small-town Canada, exceedingly proud.
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Born in Barcelona and raised in Cordoba, Andalucia, before his family migrated to Geelong, Frank Camorra turned his back on five years of architecture studies to pursue cooking – a more creative passion simmering away while he worked to pay his university bills. After working for eight years in the 1990s with the Melbourne-based and renowned Italian restaurateurs, the Grossi family, the then head chef could no longer tame the Spanish fire burning within. In 2000, he and partner Vanessa, also a chef, travelled back to Frank’s home country to engross themselves in Spanish cooking and culture, learning both classic and modern Spanish food. Their training and travels were the beginning of a magnificent crescendo – on their return, they opened what was in a few short years to be named Australian Gourmet Traveller’s ‘best Spanish restaurant in the country’, MoVida Bar de Tapas y Vino.
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Growing up on a wool farm in rural New South Wales, Therese Rawsthorne spent her childhood shearing sheep and working in the paddocks of her parents’ property. Providing her with ample time to daydream about her future, the experience also taught Therese a tenacity that she would call upon again later in life. Defying her family’s advice that she pursue a career in law, Therese chose to follow her heart and leap into the fickle world of fashion. After stints working in London for Issey Miyake and Oswald Boateng, she returned to Australia with a dream to start her own fashion label. Now, thanks to that rural tenacity, fresh from a critically lauded showing of her self-titled label at Melbourne Fashion Week, 31-year-old Therese’s dream is well and truly a reality … and she’s realised that perhaps it’s time to dream a little bigger. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – therese rawsthorne’
