Innehållsförteckning för issue 26 från The New York Times Style Magazine: Australia

THOSE WHO CHOOSE to push against the status quo tend not to be laid-back wallflowers. It seems it takes a force of personality to want to shape culture, influence attitudes and effect change. So it goes without saying that this, our Greats Issue, is populated by characters you’d love to meet around a dinner table. Kara Hurry met a diverse bunch of makers and innovators (page 28) — they include a brewer, a surfer-turned-seaweed farmer and a travel industry disruptor — who are united in their aim to tackle the problems of our age, from the climate crisis to food insecurity in Australia’s remote communities. Case in point: Brodie Neill, a Tasmanian-born furniture maker who was horrified by the plastic rubbish he saw washed ashore on otherwise pristine Bruny Island.…

‘I worried about being typecast. I worried about my whole 20s being dedicated to one show.’ Before sitting down with Sam Corlett, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The 28-year-old actor from New South Wales’ Central Coast has been touted as Hollywood’s Next Big Thing ever since Vanity Fair praised him for “giving off strong early Heath Ledger vibes” back in 2020. In the intervening years, Corlett has landed top roles in big-budget Netflix dramas. He played the shaggy-haired, axe-wielding lead in “Vikings: Valhalla” and, more recently, the renegade heir to the world’s biggest cattle station in “Territory”, a lavish miniseries set in the Top End that’s billed as Australia’s take on “Succession”. Yet listening to a bunch of podcasts ahead of our interview, it soon becomes clear that Corlett…

AS EACH YEAR draws to a close, we have an opportunity to reflect on the strides forward we’ve taken and the challenges we’ve faced in the previous 12 months, and to formulate a plan for the coming year. This year, it has been my privilege to connect with passionate Australians who are building great “greenprints”: setting the foundation for sustainable, environmentally conscious and socially friendly art, design, products and businesses. These humble yet very special individuals are not only addressing the environmental and social challenges of our time, but are helping to create a cultural shift — their stories and words remind us that the future is ours to shape and that each of us can contribute in our own way. Here, a few of those who are determined to…

THE MISTY, FORESTED slopes of the Sierra Madre del Sur and Sierra Norte mountain ranges and mangrove-lined Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, are home to mezcal, one of the world’s oldest spirits. Arguably no drink is more closely tied to a place and its people than this, and none is as trendy in the cocktail and spirits world right now. It seems impossible to walk into a high-end bar without finding a mezcal cocktail on the list, and according to recent industry sales data it’s one of the fastest-growing spirits categories in the world. So what is this mysterious, beautiful drink? Mezcal, like tequila, is made from the fermented juice of the agave plant. But mezcal predates tequila by hundreds of years and has a much broader range of flavours…

THE COLLECTOR THE HOST THE TRAVELLER THE ICON THE PAMPERED…

O winged Lady, Like a bird You scavenge the land. Like a charging storm You charge, Like a roaring storm You roar, You thunder in thunder, Snort in rampaging winds. Your feet are continually restless. Carrying your harp of sighs, You breathe out the music of mourning. — from “Hymn to Inanna” by Enheduanna, translated from the Sumerian by Jane Hirshfield PROPHETESS ONE RISKS ANGERING the gods if one visits an oracle empty-handed. When I ring the Camberwell, South London, doorbell of Florence Welch, I hold a tribute: “The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse” (2022), edited by Kaveh Akbar. It has a poem in it by Enheduanna, the first named poet in written historical records, a Sumerian princess and priestess who lived over 4,000 years ago. Ancient priestesses made their bodies…

HIGH-RANKING GOVERNMENT types and thirty-something-year-old businessmen in the exact same tone of suit crowd the foyer of Washington DC’s oldest saloon as I push through its revolving doors but find no viable exit. Packs of tourists are presenting to the maître d’ too, ready for their bucket-list lunch. Old Ebbitt Grill, established in 1856, is a downtown DC institution; former United States presidents from Warren Harding to Grover Cleveland were reportedly regulars. “This isn’t crowded, sir,” I’m corrected as I’m escorted to my table. The steak’s tender, the oysters are fresh, but the history’s best: on the walls around me are animal heads reputedly shot and gifted by (former president) Teddy Roosevelt. Across from downtown and into the heart of Georgetown — DC’s oldest neighbourhood, which predates DC itself by…

It’s hard to find a culture whose adornments don’t include symbols of marine life. From the twin golden fish of Jainism and the nearly 4,000-year-old turquoise-and-gold catfish charm unearthed in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom to the lustreware guppies fashioned by the 20th-century American ceramist Beatrice Wood, the image of the fish, shimmering boldly in the light of the sun or moon, has embodied both the ephemeral and the eternal. Now Chopard, the Swiss jewellery house founded in 1860, has created a necklace with a pendant made to resemble a pair of koi in white and rose gold accented with titanium. Inlaid with onyx, rubies, diamonds and sapphires in shades of yellow and orange, they’re surrounded by huge pear-shaped aquamarines, as though the sea, once again, had offered them up in celebration.…

IN FEBRUARY 1850, a former sailor named Herman Melville, of New York City, began writing a very strange novel about the sea. When he finished the manuscript, some 18 months later, his British publisher — it came out in the UK first — agreed to a print run of just 500 copies, with the title “The Whale”. The American edition, coming out a month later, was retitled “Moby-Dick”, and had a print run of just under 3,000 copies. Neither the British nor American editions sold out; the novel was a commercial flop. It was a critical failure, too: many critics trashed it. In the last years of Melville’s life, “Moby-Dick” was lucky to sell a few dozen copies a year. He died in 1891 thinking his surreal tale of Captain…

THERE’S AN INNATE tension within Hermès’s Chaîne d’ancre line, a jewellery collection that borrows the rough heft of industrial metal and translates it into something light and mobile — a weight made weightless. The design was first introduced into the maison’s line-up back in 1938 after Robert Dumas, Émile Hermès’s son-in-law, was struck by the stark simplicity of anchor chains on boats moored in a Normandy harbour and swiftly added the details to the Hermès moodboard. Almost a century later, what began as a simple chain with a rugged elegance evolved into one of Hermès’s most intriguing creations. Under the direction of Pierre Hardy, the creative director of jewellery at Hermès, the Chaîne d’ancre has moved well past its workhorse roots. It deliberately taps into its contradictions and expands on…

IN 1969, ALDO Cipullo designed the Cartier Love bracelet with a radical message: Love locked in permanence. Two flat, rigid arcs of metal — joined only when screwed together with a custom tool — became not just a bracelet but a symbol of steadfast commitment, requiring a partner’s assistance to be fastened. Inspired by the concept of medieval chastity belts, Cipullo’s design presented an aesthetic as stark as it was sincere, with its exposed screws and industrial simplicity. The Love bracelet swiftly became an icon, worn by couples as a tangible sign of their devotion. As an accessory, the bracelet did more than adorn; it bound. “After all, love symbols should suggest an everlasting quality,” said Cipullo at the time of its launch. Fast-forward to today, and the Love bracelet…