Perhaps it’s classic cynicism, but there was something surprising in feeling such warmth from someone that’s adored by millions. Bea, or as she’s more belovedly known to the masses, Beabadoobee is simply put — a star. Her rise to fame came amidst TikTok's very own, a time uniquely immortalised as the beginning of the pandemic. ‘Coffee’, the first song she’d ever written, got remixed with a Powfu 2019 single, and it simply became one of those sounds on the app. Such a cultural artefact that, play one chord, and it’ll get people talking about their attempts at virality with it.
Two years onwards from that first taste of fame and much has changed. She’s won an NME Award, toured with fellow indie it-girl Clairo and has just released her sophomore album Beatopia. Not to mention, people are so enamoured by Bea that there are endless video tutorials (her own Vogue one included) on the internet dedicated to her iconic makeup.
Celebrity Profile, Feature, Interview, Fashion
Ghosting is an action so widely dissected-and-discussed you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t know what it means. I’d been a previous victim in high school, a time when the act was still gaining definition, and the same time as online dating norms were being created. But it still happens.
Entire essays (don’t check my Notes app) and theories could be written about my ghosting, and all ghosting for that matter. It drives you mad. For a while, my brain replayed the memory of a previous fling asking “have you written about me yet?” Like, could it all have been done for the sake of clout?
Everyone’s got different antidotes to the madness: my flatmates say to block all avenues of possible communication, my Mum says “just find a new one”, and TikTok keeps telling me to cast spells. The only thing that actually seems to work is hearing other people’s experiences. From dynamics as deep as being months into a relationship, to an “art boner”, the spectrum of how people came to be ghosted is wide.
Culture, Interview
*this article also appeared in Print
Cafes play host to the city’s vibrant and distinct microcosms — entire eras of my life can be matched to the hospitality institutions that served me at the time. Some cafes achieve the great glory of becoming a precious regular fixture in a tribe’s weekly routine.
As my boss always tells me, time is the most valuable currency in the world, and one which is often deeply invested in hospo haunts. Ever so expressive and calculated, style cues — and hence clues to cafes frequented — can be as small as a shade of yellow or the texture of one’s sock.
The theatre of human life is the greatest and most affordable form of entertainment. We’re all just a little bit silly. So, go, sit at these arenas, and embrace the spectacle.
Print, Feature, Culture
The app first came to my attention as my friends and I were walking to a festival back in April. During this long walk down Tamaki Drive, my friends couldn’t stop talking about how “lit” their BeReals would be that day. Their contagious excitement was enough for me to use my precious data and download the app.
BeReal markets its selling point as “Your friends for real” - virtue signalling to how edited they think the social media landscape is. Its attempt to fix this problem manifests in one single notification.
The app sends out an alert at a random time each day, users are then given two minutes to reveal exactly what it is they’re doing, all through a photo taken on both their front and back camera. There have been TikToks of a BeReal notification popping up during Harry Styles and Billie Eilish concerts, the screams of ““BEREAL, BEREAL!” washing across that mosh-pit like a seance.
Culture, Personal Essay
A black Lexus or Mercedes Benz have long epitomised the ultimate vehicle of chic in fashion. Through fashion week sponsorships and partnerships, they’ve earnt this association through trucking fashion editors and influencers from point A to B. But the formerly status-revealing accessory of a private driver has been replaced with a new one – public transport.
The Number 2 bus, a Wellington hometown love of mine had been lost over the last six years, firstly to a toxic ex (my Uber addiction during uni) and then a situationship (my work car park in Tāmaki Makaurau). My return to her doors was first met with apprehension, until I quickly realised that Wellingtonians embrace public transport with a self-assured style that other parts of Aotearoa don’t. They’ve simply got that je ne sais quoi.
Dressing for public transport is defined by three key factors: mood, timing and destination. It’s a fine balance between whimsy and practicality. Kitten heels? Totally hot and doable, but if you’re in a bad mood, desperate to get home and jump on a bus or train anytime from 3.20pm-5pm… The onslaught of stares from judgemental high-schoolers can feel especially sharp.
Cover Story, Culture, Fashion
Any time I had to reveal my mum’s job to someone, hastened justifications would also fall out of my mouth, reeking of shame. “We’re a first-generation immigrant family…” “Oh but you know, she used to do a different job back in Cambodia…” “Don’t worry, she’s happy though!”
Tens of thousands of people have passed through my mum’s till over her 11 years as a supermarket checkout operator, many of whom would have been too blinded by the stigma of her job to see much else.
Culture, Personal Essay
Like all great archaeological discoveries, it began with an asthma inhaler. My lungs were screaming, as I’d just migrated the flat TV into my room. A blissful Friday night of nothingness laid ahead, with only one obstacle left: the TV was not high enough for my in-bed eyesight.
Looking around the room for some type of platform, I soon shrieked. Nope, not a cockroach (this time). I had stumbled across an iconic fashion artefact: a 192-page hardcover book with a ballet pink cover.
It, a half biography, half guide on how to be cool by Alexa Chung, arrived in 2010 and its pages have since been seared into my brain ever since.
The book entered my life at the age of 15. A particularly vulnerable time, marked by concerns of whether my teal school uniform was sexually desirable enough for sweaty Wellington College boys. Seeing images of Chung on Tumblr and a then early-Instagram reflected a different idea of what ‘cool’ could look like.
Culture, Feature, Interview, Fashion
It’s been said many times before, but we’ll say it again, it’s our deep-rooted connection with the land and sea that makes Aotearoa summer simply magic. The idea of a perfect summer’s day looks different for everyone, but there’s an encompassing spirit for all. There’s a comfort in the air during our summers, where finally, we stop and relish in not quite knowing what day it is, similar to the haze between Christmas and New Year's. It’s island time, baby.
This ethos extends from the soul right to the sand, with no greater summer routine than being face-down on the beach, eyes half-open and turning half-heartedly to a friend to ask, “Should we go back in for another dip?” Whether it be the sleepy coast of Ōhope to the mosh-pit of city slickers at Pōneke’s Oriental Bay on a steaming day, our beloved beaches are an intrinsic part of our DNA.
Feature, Interview, Fashion
The news of two deaths at social housing complexes in Wellington and Christchurch over the weekend didn’t surprise me. It enraged me.
Our family moved into council housing in 2010 and even as a 10-year-old, I was acutely aware of what this meant. The complex we lived in stood on the main street of a wealthy Wellington suburb. The kids from my primary school scootered past my family’s financial situation as they made their way to the park. A boy in a Year 8 class once said to me, “I’m surprised you even have wifi in there.”
The joke on him however is that the first six years of our time there was pretty great. Sure, our house was mouldier than forgotten bread in a student flat. But our complex held a diverse community of families from all backgrounds. Everyone looked out for each other. When a tired office worker crashed into my mum’s car one early morning, our neighbours lent her theirs for a couple of months. Their kindness kept her, a single mother of two daughters, afloat. Despite my deep insecurity about my family’s living situation, our neighbour’s freshly baked lemon cake always momentarily cured it.
Personal Essay, Politics
Shuffling off heels, putting the jug on, changing into a basically-unravelled cotton t-shirt… We all have our rituals to ease our bodies and brains into the harmony of home.
Most young adults begin a song and dance with the rental market as soon as they leave home. A rhythm as enjoyable as a dental exam. From vomit-grey brick-walled rooms in Grey Lynn to a physically crumbling Eden Terrace villa, it’s surprising that these places still arouse fondness in my memories.
The physical house frames may have been shaky, but the security that a feeling of ‘home’ offers in your heart is one of the most important parts for daily life. Having dear friends as flatmates will certainly help with that. Stu, my angel flatmate, asks me, “How was your day?” without fail, in perfect clockwork the moment I arrive from work.
Feature, Profile, Fashion
*this article also appeared in Print
I nearly fell asleep. Typically that is the type of Google Review, that if left on a class, would earn you a call from the business, in either apology or legal-action form. But when it’s a yoga class — it is the highest form of flattery.
Yoga has typically been ego death for me. It’s my equivalent of a mean boyfriend. The last time I went to yoga, I focused more on the fancy leggings of my fellow yogis than my breathing. It was out of pride. The legging hyperfixation that is, not the yoga-attending. I’d then been trying to heal from my pre-existing yoga trauma, only to fail. My cynicism for yoga is simple — I hate being bad at things. Every single class I’d been to included at least 1x moment of public shaming. Fair, but no instructor had ever given me real tips to improve.
Print, Feature, Profile
They’re the dream of male novelists who again-and-again pen manic pixie dream girls. The kind of friend who’s got a designer air-freshener over her car rearview mirror, one with a scent name along the likes of ‘Fresh Sheets and Harry Styles on the Bed’. A passenger getting in would be struck by their elegance. How chic and curated, they’d think.
But as soon as said passenger peers their head back, they’d also find: a mouldy KeepCup, three pairs of mid-height candy-coloured heels (Miu Miu, Nelson Made and then a freshly resoled $5 pair from the op-shop), boxing gloves, a slightly damp beach towel and… Wait, does this count as the 12 Days of Christmas?
This friend has the best of intentions. But simply put, no matter how many [new] to-do-lists they make in their notes app – the tasks just keep coming. They’re the ultimate contradiction. They run to maintain their stress levels. Of course, only in a colour-coordinated fit with Kim Petras blasting on full volume through their 2nd gen AirPods. In their right legging pocket is an inhaler; all the ‘weekend only’ vaping (for stress too) has caught up.
Trend Curation, Gift-Guide, Culture
There was an eclectic mix of showgoers, from art-school kids to prominent fashion media figures. Of course, collectivism was achieved with the remix of PinkPantheress’ 'Pain' that played as models walked down the runway.
It’s newcomers like this pair who are fuelling the current energy in the Tāmaki Makaurau fashion scene. Fashion is changing, and in the best way possible—the sign of It-Girl status is no longer perfectly dishevelled hair, it’s if you’re seen with an Emma Jing scrunchie looped in it.
Interview, Fashion
Especially in this past week of nationwide lockdown, Love Island has given us a much-needed daily holiday from the news.
The emergence of the delta variant has been the ultimate bombshell in our villa of a country. I mean, just seven days and she’s already turned all our heads. But in Love Island’s bikini-clad world of snogging and mugging, the only real reminder of Covid-19’s existence on the show was the socially distanced family episode.
Culture
In four years of living in Tāmaki Makaurau alone, my best friend and I have probably consumed over 100 bowls of chicken feet at various yum cha venues. Most of these dates would’ve likely fallen on a dusty Sunday or if one of us were feeling homesick. It’s these traditions that make up the bones to form a strong cultural identity. Yet, it’s also these traditions that we try to erase out of existence in our youth, for how ashamed we’re made to feel by Western culture.
'Territory Unknown' is a celebration of what it means to grow up as Chinese-Pākeha. The book owns Simon and Chyna’s selfhood, particularly as they work through the stages some of us know all too well—shame of any language that isn’t English, the yearning for a more “normal” name and most of all, the pressure to assimilate into whiteness. The concept of ‘Otherness’ is something that will feel as foreign to its creators as its victims are made to feel.
Feature, Culture
*this article also appeared in Print
“The trouble really started with a baby printing press,” says Willy Coenradi, of his now sizable collection of antique presses and equipment.
Willy, the owner of 12 presses, is close to outshining Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology’s (MOTAT) collection. A third-generation printer, he says ink has run in his family’s veins since the 1800s.
“When my father was still alive, he always talked about how much he’d like a little tabletop printing press to make business cards in retirement,” says Willy. Fate saw an eBay seller listed such a press, and when the tiny press arrived, he marched into the print shop at (MOTAT) to get some advice on how to use it. The workers there erupted into laughter at the itsy-bitsy thing in his hands. “That’s not a printing press,” one of them said. “That’s a toy.’”
Print, Feature, Profile
Estella is a big believer in providing work for Chinese, by Chinese. The Chinese Conservation Education Trust (CCET) is proud of its cultural heritage and is willing to go the extra mile to provide environmental education, particularly for senior members of the community and new immigrants to Aotearoa.
The trust’s future depends on continuing the multilingual approach to education. “I hope I find some people who are much younger to continue the trust — they need to know the language to be able to talk to our people,” she says.
Print, Feature, Profile