Innehållsförteckning för Issue 30 från The New York Times Style Magazine: Australia

IN AN ERA when AI, with a simple prompt or two, can pump out anything from a list of holiday ideas and deep-fake videos to entire screenplays, it might seem like strange timing — contrarian, even — to publish an issue dedicated to craft. Call us square pegs, but as AI promises to streamline modern life, we increasingly value those human elements of creation that stubbornly refuse to be reformulated and optimised: those surprising angles, emotional decisions and intentional imperfections that reveal the human spirit — and hand — behind a creation. This isn’t to say that creative people won’t find uses for the new technology. On page 46, Kara Hurry writes: “The question is no longer whether AI belongs in the creative process, but how we can embrace its…

EIGHTY-ONE YARRANABBE, a new residential development from the British design house Banda and the Sydney-based architectural firm Tzannes, is set to bring a new level of opulence to a harbourfront crescent on Sydney’s Darling Point. Banda’s founder and design CEO, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, who is married to Britain’s Princess Beatrice, says he was inspired by Sydney’s coastal spirit. “Sydney has an energy we’ve long been fascinated by,” he says. “The light, the harbour, the Opera House, the view lines — the entire setting was an invitation to design something exceptional.” Work is due to start at the end of this year on the eight apartments, which will feature water views from the kitchen and living spaces. “The visual and spiritual connection to Sydney Harbour gave us an incredibly rich context…

When Michael Rider accepted the role of creative director of Celine in October 2024, he did so with no small weight on his shoulders. Celine, after all, is a house shaped by seismic personalities (Rider took over from Hedi Slimane, who succeeded Phoebe Philo), who have produced a range of legendary silhouettes. One such icon of the brand was the Phantom bag, which debuted during Philo’s tenure in 2011. Inspired by Celine’s original suitcase design, the leather bag featured flared gussets and an arrangement of handle anchors and side zip that looked to many like a face. Naturally, it was nicknamed the “smiley face bag”, something Rider played into in his debut collection for the house. His reimagined update on the Phantom hit the spring 2026 runway in Paris in…

THERE’S A MOMENT in “Hurry Up Tomorrow” — the new film co-written, produced by and starring the R&B singer the Weeknd, whose given name is Abel Tesfaye — in which Anima, a mysterious character played by Jenna Ortega, whacks the singer over the head with a bottle of champagne, knocking him out cold. “That’s my girlfriend’s favourite scene,” Tesfaye says. The film is a cinematic roman à clef. It tells the story of a superstar called the Weeknd, known for his melancholic music and reclusive personality, who is on a huge stadium tour, pumping himself up with drugs, booze and other assorted trappings of fame. (Barry Keoghan plays his best friend.) When the star loses his voice onstage, it sets off his descent into surrealistic madness. In 2022, at the…

IT’S WELL UNDERSTOOD that consumer attitudes to jewellery and mechanical watchmaking have continuously evolved over recent decades. One prevailing view, that each successive generation of watch and jewellery enthusiasts is an island unto itself, may be somewhat overstated. There’s ample evidence that, irrespective of age or gender, a good emotional hook can still carry the day over a demographic split. Here, three collectors — a retailer, a brand VIP and a key opinion leader — discuss how they make sense of their individual passion. Broadly, they agree on age-old tenets of what constitutes a collectable item — from timeless design and iron-clad wearability to the elusive quality of emotional resonance. Julian Farren-Price, circa 70 A revered figure in Australian luxury retail, Julian Farren-Price is the second-generation operator of J Farren-Price…

THE BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ BEFORE THEY TURN 30 “Body Language” by Allan Pease. I was gifted this by a teacher in Year 7 — apparently you get a book when you top geography — and it changed my life. Always a journo at heart, it would seem. — KK “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. This memoir was written in the year following the death of Didion’s husband and during the fatal illness of her daughter, and I found it to be the most heartbreaking and profound work. — ES Min Jin Lee’s “Pachinko”, a meticulously researched, once-in-a-generation epic. Lee distills much of Korea’s tumultuous — and frequently tragic — history into a narrative about family, brimming with universal ideas about love, duty and cultural dislocation. A…

IN THE 1920S, the Côte d’Azur, that 690-kilometre stretch of rugged cliffs and blue waters on the southeastern edge of France, was a popular destination for what Gertrude Stein would call the Lost Generation, a loose-knit community of expatriate writers and artists. Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter and Virginia Woolf all spent summers there; in 1924, F Scott Fitzgerald finished a draft of his third novel, “The Great Gatsby”, in a rental home in Saint-Raphaël. By the time Gabrielle Chanel arrived in 1928 — the Parisian couturier, then 45 and known as Coco, purchased a pink bungalow on a two-hectare olive orchard in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, just east of Monaco — the French Riviera had established itself, as the Paris-born British writer W Somerset Maugham would later put it, as “a…

BOTTEGA VENETA INTRECCIO AIRPODS PRO CASE Minimalism meets Italian craftsmanship in Bottega Veneta’s Intreccio AirPods Pro case. Made from the supplest silicone and embossed with the house’s iconic woven motif, it transforms a daily essential into a covetable accessory. The bold colourways and sculptural design reflect the brand’s quiet confidence, while the sturdy construction ensures style never comes at the expense of protection. $350, bottegaveneta.com PRADA LEATHER SMARTPHONE CASE Prada’s sleek and structured leather smartphone case has been thoughtfully designed for modern life, featuring zippered compartments for essentials and an adjustable shoulder strap for effortless wear. The enamelled triangle logo adds a refined touch to the minimalist silhouette. Both functional and elevated, it’s the ultimate everyday companion. $2,550, prada.com FENDI DIAGONAL MAGSAFE CARD HOLDER Fendi brings its signature flair to…

A CREEPING SENSE of dread washed over Tom Hiddleston as he read the script for “The Life of Chuck”. He knew that its director, Mike Flanagan, wanted him to play Chuck Krantz, or, as the actor put it, “a harbinger of the apocalypse”. But as he read on, there came excitement, a thrill. Chuck has a secret: he loves to dance. Hiddleston, 44, loves to dance, too, a discovery he made when he was a teenager. “It was instinctive,” he says via video. “But it was only for me. I didn’t train, I wasn’t in dance classes.” He went out dancing with friends. The 1990s were his time. “My love for Daft Punk,” he says of the electronic music duo, “is enduring and real”. While he is foremost an actor,…

1. ROSEWOOD HONG KONG (TSIM SHA TSUI) Eight years in the making, 65 storeys high, and development costs in excess of $3 billion — whatever well-worn statistic you choose to cite about Rosewood Hong Kong, the hotel’s Homerian scale and cinematic scope are virtually impossible to ignore. A regular chart-topper on global best-of lists, this ultra-luxurious bolthole, set on the Kowloon waterfront, caters effortlessly to a diverse clientele of fashionistas, families, travelling executives and local Hongkongers in search of something special. Beyond its Tony Chi-designed guestrooms and frankly staggering array of 11 dining venues, Rosewood rewards those inclined toward exploration. Hot tip: for last-minute souvenirs, stop by The Butterfly Room for a selection of artful, eminently gift-worthy pastries. 2. PEDDER ARCADE (CENTRAL) When Mark Cho, the founder of the cult…

Rolex Cosmograph Daytona When the House of the Coronet wants to push the boat out, aesthetically speaking, it often turns to the Cosmograph Daytona as its preferred vessel. Over the decades, Rolex’s inimitable chrono has been clad in meteorite dials and diamond-set bezels and, on occasion, even encased in platinum. For 2025, the apex Swiss watchmaker has refreshed a classic combination of Daytona design codes (yellow gold case, Oysterflex bracelet) with an unexpected pop of colour — turquoise. Occupying a subtly different point on the colour gradient to Tudor’s Black Bay 54 in “Lagoon Blue” (also released this year), Rolex’s brightly hued dial adds further visual coherence to the Daytona’s stopwatch functionality. Counters arrayed at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock enable the wearer to record the passage of time in…

OVER THE PAST 12 months or so, we’ve seen generative AI step into creative domains once considered uniquely human. Potent examples include the fashion brand Moncler’s AI-infused collaborations, including a recent collection with the Chinese artist and AI designer Lulu Li, and the Swiss sci-fi drama film “The Last Screenwriter”, which was written entirely by the OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT 4.0 and centres on a screenwriter fighting to stay relevant as the industry embraces AI-generated content. According to McKinsey’s 2025 report “The State of AI: The Future is Now”, 47 per cent of business leaders expect AI to perform most of their daily tasks in the next three years, with more than half already using AI to automate content creation. These technologies are no longer experimental, they’re deeply embedded across industries,…

RIMOWA DISTINCT CABIN At the pointy end of the multibillion-dollar luggage business, there’s Rimowa — and then there’s everybody else. The German maker’s grooved aluminium shells, machined in an exhaustive array of carry-on and checked sizes, are synonymous with well-heeled travel, unfailingly appearing in transit lounges, hotel lobbies and chauffeur cars around the globe. Already a category leader in the aluminium space, the brand is now recasting its traditionally silvered silhouette in natural materials. Last month, it unveiled a new taupe version of its Distinct Cabin, a signature leather-bound design with room to pack three days’ worth of essentials, sized for most overhead compartments. An intelligent way to accessorise the modern in-flight wardrobe — grey sweatpants; beige knitwear? — the Distinct Cabin fuses its sumptuous looks with Rimowa’s renowned engineering.…

“I’M 30 YEARS old, but I was born in 1983.” So divulged a woman I met at a wellness retreat in Thailand last month. We were sitting in the sauna, steaming ourselves like dumplings, and she watched my face intently as I took in her statement and mentally did the maths — which clearly wasn’t mathing. “OK, I’ll tell you,” she went on eagerly. “According to my birth certificate, I’m 42. But medical results just in from the lab indicate that my blood age is 30. I’m the same age as my baby sister — I’m practically foetal.” What goes up but can’t come down? Your age, according to the classic brainteaser. But that’s no longer the whole truth. Because while ageing has traditionally been viewed as a fixed, linear…

An unanswered question in modern music history is: what happened to the culture that created all those amazing female artists in the 1990s? From Liz Phair to Björk to PJ Harvey to Hole to Bikini Kill to Tori Amos and others, women with wildly different sounds, looks and opinions were as critically and commercially powerful as, if not more than, men. Yet by the early 2000s, we were all living in a Disney pop star-dominated world in terms of mainstream commercial music. Shirley Manson, the Scottish musician who has for 31 years been the frontwoman of Garbage, one of the most successful rock bands of the era and a major contributor to this woman-powered ’90s culture, has a fascinating theory. “September 11th stopped all alternative female voices in their tracks,…

IN THE 1660S, decorative brooches and ribbons began appearing on the bodices of women’s clothing in Europe. A century later, Marie Antoinette wore frilled trimmings on her coronation robes and Madame de Pompadour, the chief mistress of King Louis XV, tied lacelike collars around her neck. When Van Cleef & Arpels opened in Paris’s Place Vendôme in 1906, one of its first orders was for a gem-encrusted bow-shaped brooch. In 1918, the house produced a black onyx and diamond broche noeud, or knotted pin; this was followed in 1926 by a round, Art Deco-inspired clip with a fluttering band of diamonds that mimicked a swatch of silk. During World War II, the company, unable to obtain as many precious stones, improvised with pendant bows featuring intricate gold lacework that resembled…