Category: Travel

  • Mount White Station

    New Zealand Aotearoa is known for its farming culture and Mount White is home to one of the famous high-country stations. Mount White Station is on the Canterbury side of the Southern Alps/ Kā Tiritiri o Te Moana, the huge range that runs the length of Te Waipounamu/ The South Island. With much of the…

  • The listening tracks this week

    The playlist this week features: Safari by John Barry. British composer, John Barry, was known for his prolific output for film music. This track comes from Out of Africa, the cinematic rendition of Karen Blixen‘s famous memoir about her life in East Africa in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. That Happy Feeling by…

  • Spotify – the playlist

    Each week a curated playlist of audio goes along with the blog. A separate blog post about has been reinstated this week that describes the tracks and why they have been included in the list. Paying subscribers to Spotify, the platform that hosts the list, can hear all the tracks by clicking on the player…

  • The blog this week

    This weekend we are going to a high-country farm, Mount White Station, for a tour of the operation and to meet some of the people who work there. Mount White is in the central part of the South Island, roughly midway between the East and West Coast and lies across the Waimakariri, a river that…

  • Black History Month

    February is Black History Month, a celebration that is marked by the birthdays of famous abolitionist Americans: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Black History Month is recognised in the North America, Europe and Africa, and in the USA the annual event has a theme. This year it is “African Americans and Labor“ The music, fashion…

  • The Way We Wore

    An insightful and fascinating series on Netflix at the moment explores the evolution and history of fashion in Australia. Presented by Celeste Barber and made in 2023, The Way We Wore is a three-part series that takes a chronological look at how fashion has influenced history Down Under and has helped to create the modern…

  • Like the Turf

    Caroline McQuarrie’s Like the Turf has just opened at the Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth Māwhera. Caroline is an artist from the Coast who now lives in Wellington Pōneke. She was interviewed in 2023 as part of the Conversation and Cloth series and has returned to Māwhera to open this show, previously at the…

  • Fashion in the Louvre

    The first ever fashion exhibition at Le Louvre, the Paris museum, recently opened. Louvre Couture matches the museum’s extensive collections of decorative art with pieces from some of the world’s greatest fashion design houses and emerging talents – Chanel, Gaultier, Givenchy, Prada, Balenciaga… in a nod to not only inspiration but also an acknowledgement of…

  • The State of a Nation

    At the resumption of South Africa’s Parliament sittings, the President gives an address on the State of the Nation. The annual event is not just for politics but also an occasion for celebration and dressing to support local fashion. SONA25 has been no exception with traditional and designer outfits on the red carpet. Huzzah! With…

  • The Art of Knitting – a book

    “The Art of Knitting”, published in 1977 in the UK, has just been added to the studio library. This book is filled with examples of antique knitting, mainly from Europe but also from Asia and Middle East. The third section – The patterns – is a veritable feast of contemporary-for-then versions of knitted garments inspired…