With the federal government due to legislate Australia’s commitment towards reducing CO2 emissions by 2020 and 2050 by the end of November, there is no better time, or more urgent, to show your support for strong leadership in helping Australia move towards a low emissions economy. From shopping malls to dappled shaded parks, sandy beaches to congested railway stations, on Saturday, right around Australia, the Walk Against Warming (WAW) is taking place in capital cities and in numerous towns and suburbs in regional areas. With the majority of the population now knowing what climate change is, what causes it (generally) and what needs to happen to avert potentially catastrophic loss of wildlife, increases in the rate of natural disasters, the displacement of populations from sea level rises, drought, and the slowing of wages, there is no better way to stay informed and optimistic than by placing yourself shoulder to shoulder with the diversity of your community. Go’oan, git out there!
Archive for the 'National' Category
a time for waw.
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.
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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′
bright sparks unite.
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.
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’
Appalled by the sheer wastage of food witnessed in his own restaurants and the extortionate environmental cost of producing meat dishes, visionary restaurateur Paul Mathis converted to vegetarianism. While the previous two decades had seen a chain reaction of restaurants ignited by the bustling pizzeria Paul opened at 23 – which culminated in the grand-daddy of them all, Transport Hotel on Federation Square – the Melburnian vowed on the record never to serve meat in another one of his restaurants. While commercial realities have impeded the full realisation of that ambition, Paul’s vegetarian locale, Soulmama, thrives on in St Kilda. In 2007 he opened 100 Mile Cafe, a concept restaurant in the CBD sourcing 95% of its menu from within a hundred-mile (160 km) radius, with ecologically sustainable dining at its core.
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The first seed was planted on their honeymoon to Paris. Too occupied with university and careers to have travelled abroad before then, Jane Webster and her husband became enamoured with everything French –the food, the wine, the joie de vivre. A fascination for the country’s historic chateaux was cultivated on subsequent visits and for years the school teacher and dentist by trade, who had renovated houses in Melbourne, dreamt of restoring one of these proud-but-neglected domiciles. Ultimately, it was the fear of regret that saw their sapling fantasy nurtured to full, glorious bloom, culminating in Jane’s debut book, At My French Table. Continue reading ‘national dreamer: jane webster’
It has always been music for Peter Noble. From leaving home in his teens without his parents’ blessing to become a professional musician, to working as Marcia Hines’ gig booker, owning the first independent Australian record label ever to win a Grammy, and then to where he now sits as the visionary director of Bluesfest - The Byron Bay East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival. The lack of a defined career path and job security would scare many from the music industry, but Peter, as in all things, has sought the truth within himself.
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