r yjse gsethb

AVA I L A B L E O N D I O R .CO M . AU

T H E N E W E AU D E PA R F U M

INFINISSIME

74

FUNNY GIRL Isla Fisher gets into the spirit on set.

42

R E P O R TA G E Vale Carla Zampatti, a pioneer and powerhouse of Australian fashion

50

AUSTR ALIAN R E P O RT Inside the murky and complex world of sperm donation

54

CHALLENGE One writer looks to the cosmos for life advice

58

SOCIETY Anna Sorokin, the socialite scammer, on life after prison

62

EMOTIONAL What happens after you accidentally kill someone?

66

TA L K I N G P O I N T Revisiting Sex and the City musings in the modern age

70

FIRST PERSON A raw and heartbreaking account of one woman’s sexual assault

74

INTERVIEW Australia’s sweetheart Isla Fisher on embracing her shortcomings

82

C U LT U R E Rising (pop) star Montaigne; new terrain for Julie Delpy; plus all the latest films and books

86

Isla wears Alexander McQueen dress from Marais boutique, marais.com.au; Bvlgari earrings and bracelet, bulgari.com.

CAREER How to stop saying “sorry” at work; and our marie claire International Women’s Day event wrap-up

166 L I F E S T O R Y Joan Didion

170 L A S T W O R D Claudia Karvan

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN MCDONALD; NICOLE BENTLEY, SHARON ANGELA. SET DESIGNER: SOPHIE FLETCHER/B&A. PROPS ASSISTANT: NELL FERGUSON.

F E AT U R E S

FA S H I O N 20

GET THE LOOK Re-create Isla Fisher’s cover style

23

THE LUXE LIST Watches with wow-factor

30

TRENDING NOW Pick your new-season muse

36

DESIGNER DOSSIER Gucci’s show-stopping handbag line

38

SPOTLIGHT ON K-pop’s Rosé is the new face of Tiffany &Co.’s HardWare collection

40

MODERN ICON The enduring charm of Chanel’s 11.12

92

P L AY T H E C L A S S I C S Timeless trench coats and fine jewels

102

BACK TO THE FUTURE High-octane fashion for the win

110

DREAM WORLD Slip into soft layers and sunset hues

118

COOL COLLABS Wearable art from Sportmax

120

101 I D E A S Everyday essentials for winter

126

C OAT TA L E S The latest cover-ups, from classic to contemporary

B E AU T Y 132

BEST IN SHOW Introducing the Prix de marie claire Fragrance Awards winners

136

MANE MAINTENANCE Salon treatments for glossy hair

138

T H E VA N I T Y DIARIES

T H E VA N I T Y D I A R I E S Peek inside eight celebrity beauty cabinets

144

The bathroom cabinets of eight beauty mavens.

THE EDIT Beauty news

146

W H AT L I E S B E N E AT H Is collagen the key?

148

MY B E AUT Y RULE S Carolyn Murphy

150

BACK IN TIME Celebrating 170 years of Kiehl’s

138

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BENITO MARTIN; NIKOLAI VON BISMARCK.

LIFESTYLE 154

F L AV O U R S O F I N D I A Delectable dishes to dazzle at home

158

STEAL HER STYLE Kate Moss turns her eye to interiors

160

WA N D E R LU S T Dreamy, far-flung holiday destinations

164

THE EDIT Lifestyle news

158

STEAL HER S T Y LE Kate Moss brings it all back home.

C ar t

thère de Car tier b ier Pan racel et , $ 38, 50

0, c

au. m. .co er

ar ti

Nicky Briger EDITOR Deputy editor MELISSA GAUDRON ART & PHOTOS Creative director SARAH HUGHES Art director, print & digital LEXI HENDERSON Photo editors ROBYN FAY-PERKINS, JEMMA WAUD

FASHION Fashion director NAOMI SMITH Fashion editor MONICA RUSSELL Market editor ELLA BLINCO JURY

th

è

d re

eC

er b ar ti

t, $11,500, car tier.com.au. racele

Car ti er

Pa n

BEAUTY Beauty director SALLY HUNWICK FEATURES Features director SARAH GRANT Deputy features director KATHRYN MADDEN Features writer COURTNEY THOMPSON Lifestyle editor ANNA MCCOOE Copy director DANIEL MOORE Senior copy editor ALEXANDRA ENGLISH Editorial coordinator/junior writer ALEX DUFFY DIGITAL Digital editor MELISSA MASON Digital content manager GRACE BACK Digital writers SUKRITI WAHI, DIANDRA MALIVINDI, MONISHA RUDHRAN

CONTRIBUTORS Careers editor/features writer ALLEY PASCOE ADVERTISING National brand manager MELANIE SAVVIDIS NSW sales director KAREN HOLMES Sales director Vic, SA, WA JACLYN CLEMENTS Head of Qld sales JUDY TAYLOR Implementation executive KARISHA BABLES MARKETING Marketing director LOUISE CANKETT Brand manager SARAH WEBSTER Subscriptions campaign manager CELIA CHUA ARE MEDIA Chief executive officer JANE HUXLEY Executive general manager SARAH-BELLE MURPHY Group publisher lifestyle & food NICOLE BYERS

Car tier P a nth è re

F I E RC E C R E AT U R E S

de

These sleek, diamond-studded Cartier bangles combine the wild with the wow.

Sales director ANDREW COOK Commercial manager MARENA PAUL General manager brands and commercial solutions JANE WATERHOUSE

Ca

MARIE CLAIRE INTERNATIONAL Executive director of international development JEAN DE BOISDEFFRE International deputy director FÉLIX DROISSART International brand director NICIA RODWELL Chief content officer SÈVERINE HARZO International fashion and beauty director SYLVIE HALIC International advertising department director ELISABETH BARBIER International chief digital officer OLIVIER LERNER Syndication manager THIERRY LAMARRE

er r ti

t, ele ac br

car 00, 3,0 $6

tier.co

m.au.

marie claire is the official magazine partner of the Australian National Committee for UN Women We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Printed by IVE. National distribution by Ovato Retail Distribution Australia, tel 02-9972 8800. Published 12 times a year. Trademark “marie claire” owned and registered in Australia and New Zealand by Marie Claire Album, a French Société that has its registered office in Paris, France. Published under agreement by Are Media Pty Limited, ABN 18 053 273 546, 54 Park Street, Sydney. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without prior written permission. No responsibility taken for unsolicited material. Use of trademark is strictly prohibited.

SEVAK BABAKHANI.

Are Media Pty Limited, 54 Park Street, Sydney, Australia. Tel: (02) 9282 8000 Website: marieclaire.com.au. Facebook: facebook.com/marieclaireau.

Twitter: twitter.com/marieclaireau. marie claire is a registered trademark. Copyright © 2021

EDI TOR’S LE T T ER

NICKY LOVES The trench coat is your winter-wardrobe essential: turn to page 92 for our selection of the best.

Iconic designer Carla Zampatti with editor Nicky Briger after her marie claire-sponsored show at Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival in 2019.

Cartier Tank Solo Watch, $7150, cartier.com.au

S I G N U P Want more great marie claire content plus exclusive shopping deals delivered straight to your in-box? Scan the QR code here to sign up to our email newsletter!

18 | marieclaire.com.au

Nicky Briger EDITOR

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGES ANTONI/THE ARTIST GROUP. ANJALI WEARS VICTORIA BECKHAM BLOUSE AND JEANS, AT HARROLDS.COM.AU; JAC+ JACK TRENCH COAT, JACANDJACK.COM; LEE MATHEWS HAT, LEEMATHEWS.COM.AU; FURLA BAG, FURLA.COM; BVLGARI B.ZERO1 18-CARAT ROSE-GOLD LARGE HOOP EARRINGS WITH WHITE CERAMIC, BULGARI.COM.

A

few months ago, musician Paul Dyer asked his close friend Carla Zampatti to trial Sydney’s new city tram with him. Always up for an adventure, Carla leapt at the opportunity.

When Paul queried if she owned an Opal card, Carla replied in her deep, lilting drawl, “Darling, I only do diamonds.” (Known for her speed-demon antics behind the wheel of her Merc, it’s clear Carla hadn’t ventured on public transport for many years.) Once her travel pass was sorted, the pair boarded the tram and settled in for a relaxing ride.

But within minutes, dozens of passengers, from teens to octogenarians, became aware of the famous traveller. “They all started queuing for a selfie!” Paul recalls. “I couldn’t believe it; I felt like I was sitting next to a rock star.”

This story, told lovingly to family and friends at Carla’s wake, beautifully sums up the legendary designer’s extraordinary and wide-ranging appeal. With her tragic passing on April 3, Australia lost its most-loved, enduring and famous designer. For 56 years, Carla dominated the style scene by never straying from her belief that clothes are meant to make women feel confident and in control.

Slip on a Carla Zampatti cocktail dress, jersey pants or tailored jacket, and you feel ready to rule the world; her clothes perfectly flatter your assets, no matter your age or size. This democratisation of style was Carla’s superpower, and cemented her place in the hearts of Australian women. But beyond fashion, Carla was a passionate patron of the arts and a true pioneer in the world of business, who not only inspired generations of female leaders but actively supported them. As friends remembered at her funeral, Carla would write encouraging notes to new female CEOs and business owners.

Over the years, I’ve been lucky to interview Carla; our chats were deep and far-reaching, and we’d always glide off-topic to discuss life, love, women and family, always family. Talking to Carla was a revelation – I’ve never met anyone who knew so resolutely what she wanted, yet achieved her goals with grace, generosity and good humour. This month we pay homage to the late, great Carla Zampatti with a heartfelt tribute beginning on page 42.

It’s befitting, then, that in the same issue we farewell Carla, we also feature a 54-page luxe fashion special filled with chic separates, haute pieces, gorgeous jewels and statement-making watches. With temperatures dipping, our extensive coat edit on page 126 will have you covered, from chunky teddies and puffer jackets to chic blazers for every budget. Speaking of cover-ups, trench coats are definitely having a moment. Whether sleek or slouchy, a timeless trench is a wardrobe must-have. Flip to page 92 for our pick of the best in store. Then turn to page 120 for your ultimate winter wardrobe: think cosy knits, stompy boots and stylish separates to keep you warm while looking cool. Finally, this month’s Luxe List showcases the world’s most drool-worthy watches, from classic styles to opulent timepieces dripping in diamonds.

Carla would surely approve.

GET TH E LO OK

1

5

6 2

7

ON THE COVER

Isla Fisher wears Miu Miu top; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper earrings (front); her own earrings.

8 C OV E R S TA R S T Y L E

GET THE LOOK

3

9

4

Emulate Isla Fisher’s pretty tonal makeup by keeping eyes, cheeks and lips in the same colour family – and working with blendable cream and liquid formulations.

A cream blush is a great way to warm up cheekbones while keeping skin looking natural, then add a touch of skin-warming highlight to give the complexion a lit-from-within feel. For a youthful pop of colour, blend in peachy cream tones onto lids. Finish with mascara, brushed-up full brows, and a matte lipstick to keep the look both fresh and modern.

NAPOLEON PERDIS Stroke of Genius Liquid Foundation, $69 (1); Camera Finish Loose Powder, $49 (4); Framed Liquid Brow Pen, $39 (5); Luxe Lids Eye Stix in Life’s a Peach, $40 (6); Cheek Switch Crème Blush Stick in Save the Coral, $49 (7 ); Mattetastic Lipstick in Ava, $38 (9).

MIU MIU bag, $3450 (2); shoes, $1839 (8 ), miumiu.com.

EMILIO PUCCI top, $445 (3), at mytheresa.com.

BVLGARI B.zero1 one-band ring, $2060 (10 ), bulgari.com.

20 | marieclaire.com.au

10

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLE BENTLEY; STILL-LIFE BY SEVAK BABAKHANI; COURTESY OF MYTHERESA; COURTESY OF BVLGARI.

Warm, peachy tones and super blendable textures are at the heart of Isla’s glowing look

CHOPARD BOUTIQUE SYDNEY 119 King Street, 02 8197 6007

FA S H I O N FI R ST THE GOLDEN ARMOUR Commanding double the wrist space, this update on the ’80s-born Panthère de Cartier classic embodies twice the power and opulence of the original.

Cartier watch, $62,500, cartier.com.au; Stella McCartney faux fur coat and belt, $3935, stellamccartney.com; Bally gloves, $370, bally. com.au; Van Cleef & Arpels earrings, $20,500, vancleefarpels.com.

TH E timepiece LUXE LI ST Stay in the moment with these statement-making watches

marieclaire.com.au | 23

FASHI ON FI RST

Chopard watch, $65,200, chopard.com; Loewe dress, $2100, loewe. com; Mother top, $229, at edwardsimports.com; Gucci earring, $515, gucci,com; Van Cleef & Arpels ring, $1840, vancleefarpels.com; stylist’s own bracelet and model’s own nose ring.

THE ARMY CANDY Diamonds and astrological motifs bring the wonder of the midnight sky down to earth in Chopard’s Happy Moon watch.

24 | marieclaire.com.au

THE PUNK ROCK Sophistication and rebellion join forces in Christian Dior’s Gem watch, channelling the jagged form of precious stones for an unexpected take on jewel timepieces.

Christian Dior bustier, $1950, skirt, $4700, and beret, $1650, 1300 003 467; Dior Timepieces watch, $7100, 1300 003 467; model’s own earrings.

THE CHICEST LINK Chanel’s signature leather-entwined chain joins a black octagonal watch face inspired by Paris’ Place Vendôme for a piece that’s classic with an edge.

Chanel Première Rock Triple Row watch, $7500, jacket, approx $9790, and earrings, approx $1180, 1300 242 635.

FAS H IO N F I RS T

Omega watch, $29,700, omegawatches.com; Sportmax top, $585, world.sportmax.com.

THE KEEPSAKE To celebrate its 125th anniversary, Omega’s de Ville Trésor takes on a special-edition burgundy hue with damascening engraving, capturing the spirit of a vintage heirloom.

FASHI ON FI RST

THE HEROINE Striking the utility of a stainless steel bracelet against a diamond-dotted black mother-of-pearl face, Longines’ Conquest Classic epitomises androgynous chic.

28 | marieclaire.com.au

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGES ANTONI/THE ARTIST GROUP. STYLED BY MONICA RUSSELL. HAIR BY JOEL FORMAN/LION ARTIST MANAGEMENT. MAKEUP BY STOJ/THE ARTIST GROUP. MODELS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE): ANJALI TORVI, UMA MANASSEH, JADE HSU, LINNEA STEVENS-JONES, CATE BENNETT, ANNABELLA DONNOLA/ALL PRISCILLAS. WORDS BY ALEX DUFFY.

Longines watch, $2000, longines. com.au; Celine by Hedi Slimane top, $750, blazer, $3350, and shorts, $940, (02) 9232 7051.

TRENDING

NOW STELLA MCCARTNEY PRE-FALL 2021

Channel your alter ego, adopt her attitude and steal her style 2 1

3

4

5 14

6

13

THE TREND

S TA R P L AY E R Sporty sweats turn luxe with stand-out graphic accessories and chunky gold links.

12 7 9

11 10

8

1 Jil Sander necklace, $1215, at matchesfashion.com. 2 Louis Vuitton bag, $5100, au.louisvuitton.com. 3 Stella McCartney jumper, $1135, stellamccartney.com. 4 Stella McCartney pants, $1050, stellamccartney.com. 5 Fendi ring, $470, fendi.com. 6 Loewe jumper, $1315, loewe.com. 7 Louis Vuitton necklace, $1830, au.louisvuitton.com. 8 Stella McCartney bag, $1390, stellamccartney.com. 9 Christian Dior visor, $1450, 1300 406 581. 10 Proenza Schouler White Label top, approx $227, proenzaschouler.com. 11 Gucci cap, $505, gucci.com. 12 Proenza Schouler top, $1282, proenzaschouler.com. 13 Louis Vuitton slides, $1300, au.louisvuitton.com. 14 Stella McCartney jumper, $945, stellamccartney.com.

FAS H IO N F I RS T

3 1

2

BURBERRY PRE-FALL 2021

4

15 13

5

6

14 7

12 8

THE TREND

WILD CHILD Refine animal print by mixing rock’n’roll leather with high-glamour heavy metal.

9

11

10

1 Proenza Schouler top, approx $435, proenzaschouler.com. 2 Louis Vuitton bag, $8300, au.louisvuitton.com. 3 Ashish dress, $1987, at matchesfashion.com. 4 Christian Dior earring, $770, 1300 406 581. 5 Proenza Schouler White Label pants, approx $1289, proenzaschouler.com. 6 Christian Dior belt, $980, 1300 406 581. 7 Givenchy earrings, POA, (02) 8197 0420. 8 Louis Vuitton shoes, $1770, au.louisvuitton.com. 9 Proenza Schouler White Label jacket, approx $1677, proenzaschouler.com. 10 Louis Vuitton sunglasses, $5100, au.louisvuitton.com. 11 Louis Vuitton boots, $2190, au.louisvuitton.com. 12 Ganni top, $200, at modaoperandi.com. 13 JW Anderson bag, approx $812, jwanderson.com. 14 Wales Bonner pants, $791.28, at net-a-porter.com. 15 Cartier bracelet, $10,600, cartier.com.au.

marieclaire.com.au | 31

3

1 2

4

SEA PRE-FALL 2021

5

15

6

7 14

8

12 13

THE TREND

OF THE EARTH Humble knits and statement collars in a minimal colour palette modernise the prairie girl.

9

11 10

1 Kika Vargas dress, $1537, at matchesfashion.com. 2 Maison Margiela boots, $1050, at matchesfashion.com. 3 JW Anderson jacket, approx $1280, jwanderson.com. 4 Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, $7450, vancleefarpels.com. 5 Sea dress, approx $473, sea-ny.com. 6 Éliou earrings, $280, at net-a-porter.com. 7 Mansur Gavriel shoes, $565, at matchesfashion.com. 8 Shrimps jumper, $609, at matchesfashion.com. 9 Éliou necklace, $265, at net-a-porter.com. 10 Zimmermann blouse, $595, zimmermannwear.com. 11 Fendi bag, $3250, fendi.com. 12 Sea jacket, approx $641, sea-ny.com. 13 Tiffany & Co. bracelet, $6150, tiffany.com.au. 14 Gucci bag, $3155, at matchesfashion.com. 15 Sea cardigan, approx $641, sea-ny.com.

FAS H IO N F I RS T

3

1

2

ETRO PRE-FALL 2021

4

13

5

12

6

THE TREND

11

Go eclectic with ornate prints in gem tones, soft layers and grunge boots.

COMPILED BY ELLA BLINCO JURY. WORDS BY ALEX DUFFY.

7

O LD WO R LD CHARMER 8

9

10

1 Christian Dior Fine Jewellery bracelet, $15,900, 1300 406 581. 2 Etro belt, $535, at mytheresa.com. 3 Bottega Veneta shirt, $1125, at matchesfashion.com.

4 Slvrlake jeans, $475, at modaoperandi.com. 5 Christian Dior Fine Jewellery ring, $5400, 1300 406 581. 6 Hermès cape, $6285, hermes.com.

7 Isabel Marant boots, $1890, at matchesfashion.com. 8 Loewe jacket, $3850, at matchesfashion.com. 9 Chanel bag, $6930, 1300 242 635. 10 Etro scarf, $389, at mytheresa.com. 11 Chanel boots, $3150, 1300 242 635. 12 Loewe bag, $1600, loewe.com. 13 Etro cardigan, $2702, at matchesfashion.com.

marieclaire.com.au | 33

show stoppers

DESIGN

DOSSI

ER

ER

Accessories meet the A-list in Gucci’s creative new campaign

W

hen Harry Styles slings a Gucci Jackie 1961 bag over his shoulder, you know the world is going to sit up and take notice. He’s sporting a faux-fur coat and floral blouse for an interview with James Corden. Except there’s a twist: this is no ordinary late-night talk show, but the new Gucci Beloved campaign.

As well as pop icon Styles, actors Awkwafina, Dakota Johnson, Sienna Miller and Diane Keaton, plus tennis star Serena Williams, join Corden on set for some witty banter – and to dish on their favourite Gucci bags.

“We decided to show the concept of ‘beloved’ in an ironic way, inspired by the fact that bags are the protagonists in my life and in the lives of many other people,” explains Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele.

“Very often these creations are named after influential women … In our campaign there were two stars: the bag and the actual talent. A game of

cross-references between the two great protagonists.”

The bags on show form the Gucci Beloved line: four of the most iconic handbags from the Italian house’s archives. And Michele, who’s been credited with reshaping the brand since taking the reins in 2015, once again turned his attention to reinvention – artfully and sensitively reworking each of the designs for now.

There’s the Gucci Horsebit 1955, a chic carry-all that harks back to the

FAS H IO N F I RS T

“We decided to show the concept of ‘beloved’ in an ironic way” – Alessandro Michele

OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP Harry Styles wearing

the Jackie 1961 bag, with James Corden; the Horsebit 1955 bag.

THIS PAGE, FROM TOP

COURTESY OF GUCCI. WORDS BY KATHRYN MADDEN.

Dakota Johnson with the Dionysus bag; the canvas iteration of the Jackie 1961 bag; the GG Marmont small matelassé bag; Awkwafina with the white leather version.

house’s rich equestrian heritage, rendered in fresh colours, shapes and sizes. Then there’s the Jackie 1961 – famed for its curved half-moon shape – that Jackie Kennedy gracefully tucked under her arm, revamped this year with clean lines and a second strap for added functionality.

Rounding out the range is the GG Marmont, designed by Michele in 2016 but based on the house’s 1970s double-G hardware; and the Dionysus, a softly structured handbag defined by sleek tiger-head hardware.

The fabulously creative campaign, conceived together with artist, photographer and director Harmony Korine, coincides with the house’s 100th birthday this year. But while the centennial celebrations might be sparkly and star-studded, this line is above all an ode to the essence of a luxury bag – a piece that’s been longed for, saved for and slung over the shoulder with pride and delight. And a piece that’s forever beloved.

marieclaire.com.au | 37

GOLDEN GIRL In her new role as Tiffany & Co. ambassador, K-pop superstar Rosé shows her mettle as both musician and muse. By Kathryn Madden

Rosé in Tiffany & Co.’s new campaign.

FAS H IO N F I RS T

Tiffany & Co. HardWear 18-carat yellow-gold wrap necklace, $30,500.

COURTESY OF TIFFANY & CO.

R

osé may currently be one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, adored by millions of fans for her sugary sweet vocals and highoctane performances. But she’s equally beloved for her statement-making style: sequinned bodysuits, lashings of leather, graphic tees, pleated skirts and dazzling, decadent gowns. Now, in her new role as ambassador for Tiffany & Co.’s HardWear collection, she’s putting the finishes touches on those striking ensembles.

It’s a full-circle moment for the performer, born Park Chaeyoung (or Roseanne Park, her English name) in Auckland to Korean parents. She moved to Melbourne as a child, and remembers receiving her first-ever piece of Tiffany jewellery. “They were some white gold earrings in the classic Tiffany charm shape – my mum got them for me when I pierced my ears in the seventh grade,” Rosé recalls.

“In high school, [my friends and I] used to gather money to gift each other cute little Tiffany & Co. necklaces, and there was always that special excitement of receiving the blue shopping bag.”

The HardWear line is a natural fit for the 24-year-old’s haute fashion aesthetic, all chunky chains, locks and bulbs in gleaming 18-carat gold and sterling silver. “I love how bold and chic [the range is],” she says. “I like to layer my necklaces.”

Strong and architectural, the designs take cues from modern cityscapes, a detail that also resonated with Rosé, who moved to South Korea aged 16 to pursue a music career. In 2016 she debuted with Blackpink – now the most successful girl group in the world – and released her first solo project earlier this year, scoring a Guinness World Record for the most-viewed YouTube music video in 24 hours by a K-pop soloist.

While these days the singer’s life is a flurry of fashion events and video shoots dressed in head-to-toe couture, when she puts on her Tiffany & Co. jewels she still feels the same thrill she did as a teenager. “They give me butterflies,” she says. “All sorts of butterflies.”

“I INSTANTLY FELL IN LOVE WITH THE HARDWEAR COLLECTION AND ITS MESMERISING SHAPES” – Rosé

Tiffany & Co. HardWear 18-carat rose-gold link bracelet with diamonds, $29,800.

Tiffany & Co. HardWear 18-carat yellow-gold wrap bracelet, $15,200.

marieclaire.com.au | 39

FASHI ON FI RST

Chanel 11.12 bag, $10,590, 1300 242 635.

MODERN ICON

TIMELESS LUXURY

Owning the original Chanel It-bag is a rite of passage for style lovers the world over It’s one of the most enduring legacies of the late Karl Lagerfeld’s reign at Chanel. In the 1980s, the prolific designer decided to revitalise one of Coco Chanel’s most iconic designs – the 2.55 bag that she launched in 1955. The result? The famed 11.12 bag, boasting the now celebrated double-C clasp, a leather-entwined metallic chain and instant must-have appeal. A star was born and now continues to thrive under the dutiful eye of creative director Virginie Viard. Viva la evolution.

40 | marieclaire.com.au

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI; MIKE DE DULMEN/COURTESY OF CHANEL.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel with her groundbreaking 2.55 bag, said to be the maison’s first shoulder bag.

N N D A TI

O

CO N

™

HY

D R TI O A

Y

FO

U

R LO STA

R E PO RTAGE

FAREWELL TO AN

ICON Pioneer. Survivor. Powerhouse. With the passing of Carla Zampatti, Australia has lost its most-loved, famous and enduring designer. An original trailblazer who found her fearless by empowering other women to dress for success, her legacy lives on through her transformative designs and life of inspiration

M

any say it’s impossible to imagine the Australian fashion industry without Carla Zampatti, especially as her eponymous label continues to thrive to this day. For 56 years, she remained a mainstay on the style scene by never veering from her core belief that clothes are meant to make women feel confident and empowered. She dressed politicians, dignitaries, royals, CEOs and celebrities – a veritable Who’s Who of Australian powerhouse females – but Carla’s greatest pride and joy was designing for the “ordinary” woman, ensuring everyone felt amazing in her clothes, no matter their age, size or background. Beyond fashion, Carla was

a fierce patron of the arts, holding positions as trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Dance Company and MCA Foundation, and was the first female chair of SBS. Throughout her incredible career, Carla remained inspired by her Italian heritage, bringing a passionate and elegant European sensibility to her life and work. And most notably, a love for family. In our last interview, I asked her to pinpoint her greatest achievement.

“You’d expect me to say sustaining a fashion brand for over 50 years, but really it’s my kids, Alex, Bianca and Allegra. Without a doubt, my children are my proudest achievement.” She will be greatly missed.

– Nicky Briger, editor, marie claire

marieclaire.com.au | 43

Carla Zampatti (with brothers Dino, left, and Pasquale) was born in Lovero, Italy. She arrived in Western Australia as a child, unable to speak English.

“My two brothers gave me the confidence to know I could do anything,” she wrote.

With her two girls in the 1980s: Allegra (left) and Bianca Spender, who would follow in her mother’s fashionable footsteps by also becoming a designer with an eponymous label.

HER LIFE, HER LEGACY After buying a one-way bus ticket to Sydney at age 19, Carla launched her first collection in 1965 with her then husband Leo Schuman as her business partner. When the marriage ended in 1970, Carla lost her factory but importantly retained the rights to her name.

In 1972, she opened her first boutique in Surry Hills under the name Carla Zampatti Pty Ltd. “The smile hides how scary that was,” Carla wrote in her autobiography, My Life, My Look. “In those days few designers were prepared to risk the wrath of the big department stores by launching their own retail outlets.” By 1975, Carla had remarried, to barrister John Spender, and had launched 30 boutiques across Australia. In 1980, the mother of three was named Qantas/ Bulletin Businesswoman of the Year. “Before then I hadn’t really thought of myself as a businesswoman,” she wrote. “It was a standout moment in my career.”

In the early days at her Surry Hills boutique.

44 | marieclaire.com.au

LEFT Carla’s runway show at the Sydney Opera House in 1965, when her label was less than a year old. BELOW Carla and John Spender on their wedding day in 1975.

R E PO RTAGE

The Ford Laser she designed featured a mirror in the driver’s sun visor for makeup checks, and carpet mats instead of rubber ones (they damaged high heels).

HER STYLE Lending her creativity to everything from Australia Post uniforms to the 1985 Ford Laser, Carla’s passionate approach saw her label evolve into the iconic brand it is today. In 2015, Carla came full circle with a 50-year anniversary spectacular at the Sydney Opera House – the same place where, decades prior, her models posed at the thenconstruction site. The key to her longevity? “If you’re not engaged you will not stay relevant,” she said. “You have to do something different and that in itself is stimulating. My brand’s DNA is something I passionately believe in: that simplicity is beautiful, understatement is preferable (and more elegant) and a good fit is vital.”

Carla Zampatti’s 50th anniversary show at the Sydney Opera House in 2015.

ABOVE Carla in front of her flagship Sydney store in 1994. LEFT Walking the runway with model Anneliese Seubert at Australian Fashion Week in 1997. “To see women feeling happy and confident in my clothes is really what keeps me in business and feeling inspired,” Carla said in 2015.

REMEMBERING CARLA

Carla with her models at the 2019 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival Grand Showcase.

Courage and tenacity were constant themes of Carla’s life, ensuring her staying power. Additionally, a simple business strategy: watch your expenses and back yourself. “Carla told me her greatest advice was not to take a business partner: ‘You can do this yourself!’” remembers marie claire editor Nicky Briger. In 2019, Carla was named Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Grand Showcase Designer and, in association with marie claire, presented her biggest-ever runway collection. “I’ve never met anyone who knew resolutely what she wanted, and was determined to get it, but always achieved her goals with grace and good humour,” said Briger.

In what would be her last shoot, the designer was photographed with her daughters, Allegra (left) and Bianca (far right), and grandchildren (from left) Arietta, Octavia, Rafferty, Florian and Brigid, for the Australian Women’s Weekly.

Family was paramount for Carla, who had nine grandchildren.

“Her favourite thing on the weekend was to swim and have her family around her,” daughter Bianca shared with the packed congregation at her mother’s funeral. “She offered you champagne and croissants at any time of day, with Nutella for the grandchildren, presenting everything on a perfect white cloth.” Allegra added: “We are very proud of you, Mum. We are committed to continuing your legacy of inspiring, empowering and supporting women.”

46 | marieclaire.com.au

Dame Quentin Bryce met Carla in 1978, and the pair would go on to have a treasured, lifelong connection that encapsulated “exquisite food, glasses of champagne and conversations for my treasure box,” the former governor-general said at Carla’s state funeral, which was held at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral. “When I reflect with loving affection and gratitude on our friendship of more than four decades, one that has been important and influential in my life, and when I reminisce about my collection of brilliant Zampatti designs that go back even further, I find so much to lift my heart. Farewell, dear lovely friend.”

R E PO RTAGE

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF CARLA ZAMPATTI; NEWSPIX; CAMERON SPENCER/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTOGRAPHY BY CORRIE BOND. ‘MY LIFE, MY LOOK’ BY CARLA ZAMPATTI (HARPERCOLLINS, $29.99).

Instead of being fearful of competing creatives, Carla embraced them, working alongside fashion brands such as Dinosaur Designs, Specsavers and Romance Was Born duo Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, who collaborated with Carla and styled this shoot to mark her 50-year anniversary. “Carla is an inspiring woman and business mentor to us,” said Plunkett. Added Jackie Frank, founding editor of marie claire, who also deeply admired Carla’s trailblazing attitude to women’s rights: “She was a mentor to many, and inspired generations of young designers, but also learnt from them.”

“I’d like to be remembered as someone who helped women achieve … by giving them a product that they could wear to give them confidence” – Carla Zampatti

RO S E L I F T C O L L AG È N E REINVENTS FIRMNESS & LIFT PAYOT ’s e x p e r t s b l e n d a p o t h e c a r y k n o w - h o w a n d f e m i n i n e i d e n t i t y.

C E LLU L AR WA KE- U P A patented ingredient, ROSAc tive, derived from Dama sk rose and rich in oligo -saccharides reac tivates the met abolism of the fibrobla s t s .

REDENSIFIES A C o l l a g e n - B o o s t i n g Pe p t i d e s t i m u l a t e s t h e p ro d u c t i o n o f c o l l a g e n f i b e r s to redensif y the sk in and correc t a loss of subs t ance.

C L I N I C A L LY T E S T E D The skin is more radiant

95%

(1)

The skin is firmer

91%

(2)

The skin is plumper

82%

(2)

The eye contour appears lifted

70%

ONLY AT SELECTED PAYOT SALONS & SPAS Call 1300 367 969 or 02 9874 1166 for the location of your nearest Payot Salon & Spa. www.payot.com | join us

payotaustralia

(3)

MY DAD, THE SPERM ” DONOR INSIDE THE MURK Y WORLD OF DONOR CONCEPTION Donated sperm has allowed thousands of families in Australia to have the babies they always dreamt of. But the unregulated origins of the industry, combined with the rise of online sperm swapping and secrecy, means the process is anything but perfect, reports Alexandra Carlton

J

ournalist Sarah Dingle was having dinner with her mother in a Sydney restaurant when she braced herself to ask a personal question.

“Mum, I know you had me late. Did you have any problems conceiving me?” she asked. At 27, Dingle wasn’t considering having her own children right away, but wanted to know if there might be any genetic reasons why she should be cautious about leaving things too late. Her mother hesitated. “Maybe this isn’t the right moment to tell you,” she said. “But your father is not your father. We had … problems conceiving, and it turned out your father couldn’t,” Dingle’s mother continued. “So we used a donor.”

“I wanted to scream, to rip the tablecloth off, to smash something, to go to the bathroom and cry,” Dingle writes in her new book, Brave New Humans: The Dirty Reality of Donor Conception, a documentation of her own journey to unpack the secrets and lies around her own conception, but also an examination of the ethics and complexities of donor conception in Australia generally. Her mother tried to reassure her that the most important thing was to know that she was loved and that the man she had known as her father (who had died 12 years earlier) had considered her his own. Dingle found herself numbly agreeing, to make her mother feel better more than anything else. “This,” she explains, “was my first lesson in what it’s like to be donor conceived: your feelings about the whole business come last.”

Once Dingle realised half her genetic material was a complete mystery (“Looking in a mirror and not recognising half your face is incredibly trippy – and not in a good way,” she says), she spent years trying to track down her donor, a process that involved countless dead ends, unsympathetic IVF clinic staff and the horror of realising that records had been actively destroyed in order to protect donors. It was only after she took a genetic test with Ancestry.com that she finally tracked down the man whose sperm helped to create her.

Five-and-a-half years had passed sinc the conversation with her mother.

The process, Dingle says, was almost as troubling as being told she’d been donor-conceived. The experience became all the more disturbing when she discovered the man had been

AU S T R A L IA N R E PO RT

donating sperm once a week for two years. The extent of Dingle’s potential siblings (to date she is aware of six) is so vast that she and her husband were DNA tested before they decided to have children together. “None of this, it has to be said, leaves me feeling particularly good about my existence,” says Dingle. “But the baby business has never cared about its children.” ...

Donor conception, where external parties provide sperm, eggs or embryos to an individual or couple, has allowed thousands of Australians to do what would once have been impossible for them: conceive a child.

It’s estimated there are about 60,000 donor-conceived people in Australia, although that number is difficult to assess as so many people have never been officially recorded as donor conceived and likely don’t know they are. But the practice has also had a murky history in Australia and around the world. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when it began; the 1970s and 1980s marked the beginning of what we recognise now as the modern fertility industry – with Australia’s first sperm bank set up in Adelaide in 1972 and our first IVF baby born in 1980 – but there’s evidence that backyard, unregulated sperm donation was happening for a long time before that. Dingle notes in her book that there are records of Victorian doctors donating their own sperm to women in the 1940s. Until very recently, it was common practice for any donor to remain anonymous to the person or people receiving their genetic material, and records were routinely destroyed. The children conceived during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s are adults today and many are still struggling to find out where they came from, access any important

“NONE OF THIS LEAVES ME FEELING PARTICULARLY GOOD ABOUT MY EXISTENCE. BUT THE BABY BUSINESS HAS NEVER CARED ABOUT ITS CHILDREN” – Sarah Dingle

marieclaire.com.au | 51

medical history or identify any half-siblings they may have.

Sydney nurse Geraldine Hewitt is another woman who spent years searching for the truth of her heritage, having been born from anonymous donor sperm in 1983. Recently, after spending hundreds of dollars on DNA tests, she discovered that her father was American. (It was common for Australian clinics to import sperm from overseas, and some still do.)

Sadly, she discovered her biological father had passed away before she could contact him, although she takes some comfort in knowing who he was and has established a warm relationship with her father’s brother. But the 38-year-old, who believes donor conception is “inherently wrong”, says that simply finding out who her father was is only part of the puzzle. Hewitt also recently discovered she has a potentially dangerous blood-clotting condition, which tests show she inherited from both her parents. The medical advice is that people who have this condition should alert their relatives. Hewitt informed the relatives she knew, but when she contacted the clinic where she was conceived, asking that they alert any half-siblings that she’s not aware of, they refused.

Hewitt finds this unacceptable. “I’m at a loss as to how my other firstdegree relatives get to be told but not my ‘other’ half-siblings,” she says.

Today, assisted reproduction clinics are compelled to put more emphasis on the rights of donor-conceived people to know where they came from. Since 2011, three states – New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia – have brought in laws that prohibit donor anonymity, and assisted reproductive technology (ART) clinics in other states are regulated by NHMRC guidelines, which also require that the donor’s identifying details can be made known to a donor-conceived person when they turn 18, and the clinic’s accreditation relies on it upholding these standards. But as clinics tighten their practices, a new complication is emerging that threatens to throw everything into unregulated chaos again – private gamete trading on social media, which is now so common that it may even overtake IVF clinics as a primary means of infertile couples or singles conceiving a child.

A quick social media search reveals countless groups created to link prospective sperm donors with would-be parents, in an environment

FROM TOP Sarah Dingle with

her mother and the man she grew up believing was her biological father; Dingle has formed a close connection with one of her half-siblings, Bec (above left); Dingle is now a two-time Walkley Award-winning journalist.

that relies more on goodwill and trust than any sort of binding guidelines.

Adam Hooper runs one such group, Sperm Donation Australia, and says he believes more donor-conceived babies were born from activity in his group in 2020 than from all the IVF clinics combined. “We had 437 reported cases of pregnancies and births,” he says.

Hooper has “helped over 15 families”, which may involve the birth of one or more child per family.

The group, which has more than 10,000 members, operates like a sort of Airtasker for babymaking – without the payment. Prospective parents – often lesbian couples, single women or, more rarely, heterosexual couples – write posts explaining what they’re looking for in a sperm donor, and donors respond, or vice versa. Both parties usually specify the methods they’d consider to acquire sperm – AI stands for artificial insemination, NI for natural insemination.

Hooper has guidelines in place for the group, but it’s up to the parties to meet and decide how they want to proceed. There are no limits placed on how many times a man can donate his sperm – whereas most clinics cap the number of donor recipient families to either five or 10 to minimise the chance of siblings meeting and perhaps unknowingly entering into sexual relationships. While medical histories are exchanged, it’s up to the individuals to verify the facts. All promises about parental responsibility and contact – or lack thereof – are left to the goodwill of the adults involved, and it’s impossible to know what happens to these promises after a baby is conceived. (Hooper says he hasn’t seen any issues arise within the group, and encourages recipients and donors to make their arrangement legal with binding contracts.)

And, as the group has only been around since 2015, there’s no way – yet

AU S T R A L IA N R E PO RT

SARAH DINGLE PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALANA LANDSBERRY; HAIR AND MAKEUP BY DESIREE WISE/NETWORK AGENCY. DALLAS KILPONEN/FAIRFAX; NEWSPIX; COURTESY OF SARAH DINGLE.

Geraldine Hewitt inherited a potentially dangerous medical condition from her biological parents, but struggled to get permission to alert her father’s other donor-conceived children that they could be at risk.

“YOU NEED TO TELL THEM THE TRUTH … GIVE THEM EVERY ASSISTANCE TO FIND THEIR BIOLOGICAL PARENT AND SIBLINGS” – Geraldine Hewitt – to know what the children (and eventual adults) born from these interactions will think when they grow up and realise they were born as the result of an online swap-meet.

Sometimes the “freelance” donors and official, clinic-based donors are one and the same, leading to countless children being created that no-one seems able to keep track of. In 2020, a 40-year-old Brisbane man, Alan Phan, was reportedly investigated by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority for donating to clinics around the country more times than their limits allowed, without disclosing his other private donations.

It’s believed he fathered 23 children in total, both privately and using clinics, though the number may be higher.

It’s easy to see why Dingle thinks of donor conception as the act of “breeding humans”. However, for those struggling to conceive – an issue that affects around one in six couples of fertility age in Australia – donor conception may be one of the few options that allows them to fill the deep longing for a child of their own.

And for same-sex couples, it is almost certainly the only option.

Dr Iolanda Rodino is a fertility counsellor and board member of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand. She understands that many people using ART to conceive can struggle to think beyond their intense desire to have a child. “People just

want their baby and we understand that. There’s a lot of empathy we feel for these people,” she says of her work counselling prospective parents. At the same time, she recognises the industry made grave errors in its early decades by giving donor-conceived people no way to find out about their donors – in some cases even destroying records – and encouraging parents to keep donor conception secret from their offspring. “We may not have got it perfect,” she says. “And I’m sorry for anyone who would have been through that experience [of trying to find their donors without success], I really am.

It would have been a terrible situation for them.” But she insists the clinics have learnt from their mistakes, and that unborn children’s rights and feelings are considered just as much as those of the adults planning to create them. “There is that move away from eras of the past, to contemplating that these are people growing up who will have questions about the circumstances of their conception,” she says. “How we support them is really important.”

But for someone like Dingle, all the counselling, regulation and databases in the world can’t address everything about the practice that makes her uneasy. There is also nothing that compels a family to tell a child the truth, which means unknown numbers of donor-conceived people may still live large parts, or all, of their lives without knowing that someone they thought to be a parent is actually not, and running the risk of finding out in a destabilising way, such as during an argument or because they innocently took an ancestry test. “If I had known from day one that I was

donor conceived it would have been normal,” Dingle says. “At least it wouldn’t have been such a shock to find out the way I did.”

She accepts that donor conception isn’t going anywhere. But she has a plea to any person considering using it to conceive, or to parents choosing not to tell their donor-conceived offspring.

“You need to tell them the truth. And if they want you to, you need to give them every assistance to find their biological parent and siblings.”

Hewitt believes every donorconceived person should have the facts of their conception recorded on their birth certificate, so there’s no ambiguity. Like most donor-conceived people, the man who raised her is listed as her father. “The person who should be on there is my biological father,” she argues. “We want an accurate connection to who we’re related to. Then we wouldn’t have to go through the machinations of people lying. If you say you love your child but you’re raising them in a web of lies, then there is no love. It’s about ownership. And that’s incredibly sad.”

Dingle agrees. “I understand that people will always want children. But I want those people to do everything they can to ensure the welfare of that child is paramount.”

Brave New Humans: The Dirty Reality of Donor Conception, by Sarah Dingle (Hardie Grant Books, $29.99), out now.

marieclaire.com.au | 53

l

e ’ r w ea y h l w

The cosmos is having a serious moment.

Writer and total Virgo Alley Pascoe jumps on the astro-train and asks the stars to guide her way

CH AL L E N GE

I

was stopped at a fork in the road looking for a sign. Should I turn left and press ahead with my trip to Sydney despite a once-in-a-century flood closing the highway? Or should I veer right to stay put on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast and reschedule my trip for another – drier – time?

It seemed as though the heavens were quite literally telling me to do the latter, but that wasn’t the sign I was looking for. So, I consulted my stars for a second opinion.

“You were born, and you are still here,” read the notification on my newly downloaded Co-Star app. I took that to mean, “You only live once: take the trip, buy the shoes, eat the cake.”

After six hours of driving through non-stop rain, I pulled up at my Airbnb in Sydney’s Bronte and – as if by magic – the sun came out. Thus began my week-long attempt to embrace astrology. I threw my hands in the air and surrendered my life choices to the universe. At 28, I’d had enough of making decisions for myself.

I needed a break, a guiding force, a How To: Life manual. So when the Saturn Return Survival Guide by Lisa Stardust landed on my desk promising to help navigate the cosmic rite of passage that first occurs around the age of 28 (jinx!), I took it as a sign and vowed to follow it to the letter.

According to Stardust, a New York-based astrologer, Saturn return

The perfect coffee order for a Virgo?

Anything fair trade or organic. Our writer Alley Pascoe takes note and sips accordingly.

“If you’re on the right path, the universe will reward you” – Lisa Stardust is a phase that happens every 27 to 29 years when Saturn – you guessed it – returns to the sign it was in when you were born. It’s an opportunity to reassess our ambitions, relationships, friendships and role on Earth. It’s also a time of deep reflection, turmoil and self-doubt, and a moment to break down in order to rebuild. “It’s like a celestial bootcamp,” explains Stardust.

“Saturn return forces us to make decisions that will change the course of our lives forever. It’s a karmic planet, so if you are on the right path the universe will reward you.”

Who doesn’t want to be rewarded by the universe? Luckily for us all, tapping into the cosmos has never been easier: horoscopes are everywhere right now, astrologers are the new influencers on Instagram and getting your birth chart read is as easy as downloading an app. Everyday there’s a new Buzzfeed article revealing “The Best House Plant According to Your Star Sign,” another viral meme sledging Scorpios, and a curated Spotify playlist for the current moon

phase. It’s been called the new age of astrology and there’s a reason it’s happening right here, right now.

A 1982 study found people turn to astrologers in times of stress – and a 2020 study found millennials are the most stressed generation on record.

It doesn’t take a genius (or divine philosopher) to add two and two.

Basically, we’re all lost and searching desperately for a life raft to cling to.

Confession: I must admit I’ve never been a die-hard zodiac believer.

Sure, I glance at magazine horoscopes when I’m getting a trim at the hairdressers, I chalk up my crippling perfectionism to being a Virgo, and I blame everything on Mercury retrograde, but I’ve generally considered astrology to be in the same lane as reality TV. There’s a basis of truth, but that truth can be easily misconstrued for dramatic effect, it can be manipulated to reflect what the audience wants to see, and it can be interpreted 100 different ways by 100 different people. I’ve always taken my horoscope with a grain of salt (ideally on the rim of a margarita glass).

Until now. My salt-rimmed scepticism dissolved after I had my birth chart read by Yasmin Boland, the London-based astrologer and moonologer (the latter is a term Boland coined to describe when “astrology meets the moon in conscious creation”). Speaking to Boland

marieclaire.com.au | 55

CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT As a semi-

cynic, there were limits to how far Alley would go in the name of astrology (ie. no chanting), but she found other ways to communicate with the stars; the Co-Star app pings your phone with daily horoscopes that are usually sassy and obscure; Lisa Stardust’s guidebook.

over Zoom was like chatting to a close friend who knew intimate details of my life. More than that, the conversation was like tapping into the subconscious voice in my mind that’s always been there, but I’ve had on mute. It was an awakening.

“You are a Virgo with Sagittarius rising and a Scorpio moon, so that means you’re very focused on your career [tick], you’re disciplined when it comes to money [tick] and you will do well to marry a Gemini [tick],” explained Boland, who seemed pleased when I revealed my boyfriend of nine years is, indeed, a Gemini. “I always tell women to never marry a man who hasn’t been through a Saturn return, so you should hold off a few years.”

Noted. I told my boyfriend to cancel all proposal plans until 2024 and started to practise what Boland preached. To fully embrace my birth chart, she advised me to be meticulous with my note-taking, to think positively and avoid going for the cheap laughs. As the stars wish.

On Tuesday, I wanted to turn down a new commission because I was feeling slightly overwhelmed with my workload, but my horoscope said to “start new projects and collaborate with others”. So I did, and the project was a breeze and I was more than capable of doing it along with the rest of my work. On Friday, my horoscope

correctly pointed out that I was avoiding intimacy and pushed me to: “Express how you feel. Don’t play with people’s hearts like a sadistic cat.” So I apologised to my boyfriend for ignoring him all night, explained the source of my annoyance and asked him to “chew quieter for god’s sake, you sound like a cow.” On Saturday, my Co-Star app simply said, “You are incredible.” And look, I can’t argue with that.

The stars didn’t always get it right.

Or, rather, I didn’t always agree with them. A Glamour article titled “These are the acts of self-care you should try, according to your star sign,” suggested I have a go at flower arranging, but I hate flowers. They die. Then you have to clean the vase. Hard pass. My Saturn Return Survival Guide offered up a manifestation spell to rid myself of toxicity. It involved scooping a bowl of salt water from the sea, burying a black candle with a list of habits I wish to rid my life of, and repeating a hex with the line: “I call on the universe to hear this petition. I banish, I banish.” Yeah, that’s a no from me.

Towards the end of the week, Co-Star sent a notification saying, “Today you feel like the mouth of a cave,” and I still have no idea what that means.

‘Today you feel like the mouth of a cave,’ … I still have no idea what that means

CH AL L E N GE

DANIEL GAFFEY; DAVE HERRING; JOHN BAKER; JOEYY-LEE; OLIVER SJÖSTRÖM; TOM BARRETT/ALL UNPLASH. COLLAGES BY LEXI HENDERSON.

If Saturn return is a test in breaking down and rebuilding, then I give myself an A+ (like the overachieving, perfectionist Virgo I am)

Spells and riddles aside, when the stars aligned, I felt it all click into place. A shiver ran down my spine when Boland explained that Saturn is related to father figures. “I would suspect you had a difficult childhood [tick] and if you came from an unstable home [tick], stability will be your number one focus in life,” she said. “As you go through your Saturn return, you will make peace with that. The full moon is the right time to forgive things from the past and move on.”

H

ere’s where things get a bit dark. As I was relinquishing my life to the powers above, my estranged father was lying in a hospital bed doing the same, after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. Once again, I was standing at a fork in the road looking for a sign. Should I turn left and visit my dad despite having not seen him in 10 years? Or should I veer right and stay put, leaving the past safely locked behind the door I slammed shut a decade ago?

To decide, I referred to something Boland said in my birth-chart reading: “Now is a very good time for you to work on all your relationships. Rather than insisting on standing on your own two feet, you should reach out to other people for help.”

It was like Boland knew my greatest weakness and was daring me to face it. Being vulnerable is higher than flower arranging on my list of loathed activities. It’s not a selfless thing; I’m not altruistically protecting my loved ones from my problems. Or even a martyr thing; I don’t get off on suffering in silence. It’s a lazy thing.

Talking about feelings is hard and I’d rather not do it.

Nevertheless, she persisted – and followed Boland’s advice. I asked for help and held my sister’s hand as we walked into the hospital. I made peace with the past as I sat beside my father’s bed and felt years of resentment and anger start to fade away.

I opened up and cried on a friend’s shoulder, and I felt stronger for it all.

If Saturn return is a test in breaking

down and rebuilding, then I give myself an A+ (like the overachieving, perfectionist Virgo I am).

Facing the turbulence of my first Saturn return and the sobering reality of mortality, I found an unexpected comfort in my horoscope. “They say people don’t read their horoscopes when they’re having a good day.

People often turn to astrology when they’ve got an issue they need to resolve,” says Boland. “Astrology helps people to understand themselves and the world around them. I hope you’re slightly helped knowing your unstable childhood was in your chart, and now you know that you can grow from it and use it to create a better future.”

I am, and I will.

With the full moon looming large in the night sky, I followed Boland’s commands once more and let my emotions flow free. I stood at my bedroom window looking up at the stars and let go of it all: the weight of the week that was, the challenges in my past, the fear of being vulnerable – and the pent-up anger I felt towards my neighbours, yelling, “Turn your music down for god’s sake, it’s 11pm.”

Sorry, that was a cheap laugh.

It turns out I wasn’t looking for a sign after all. I was looking for confirmation of what I already knew, a nod of approval to do what I wanted, an omen to show me I was on the right path. And that’s exactly what I found.

Saturn Return Survival Guide, by Lisa Stardust (Hardie Grant Books, $22.99), out now.

marieclaire.com.au | 57

SORRY,

Anna Sorokin is a modern-day Gatsby who scammed New York’s high society and ended up in jail. Newly released, she tells Laura Pullman why she’s unapologetic and what she’ll do next

NOT SORRY

S O CI E T Y

A

nna Sorokin, baby-faced con artist, is pouting and hair-flicking as the photographer snaps away.

Fresh from prison, the so-called “fake heiress” is in her element: assistants are fussing over her, she’s head to toe in designer clothes and best of all, the photo shoot hasn’t cost her a cent. At one point Sorokin disappears – she has slipped back to the makeup chair to sneak in a free haircut.

“Scammers gonna scam,” quips the stylist later. She’d taken a careful inventory of her wardrobe before the fashion-conscious crook showed up. Sorokin, 30, would have been unimpressed had she known they were worried about light fingers. “I just went for the big stuff. I’m not really a penny pincher,” she’d told me the previous day. “I wouldn’t be going for peanuts.”

The story of how Sorokin, the SoHo grifter, swindled New York’s high society has become one of the parables of the Instagram age.

Arriving in Manhattan from Europe in 2013 using the name Anna Delvey, she became a Gatsbyesque figure: a mysterious German heiress to a $60 million dollar trust fund who dished out $100 tips, posted photos of herself living the high life, and had grand plans to open a private members’ arts club to rival Soho House.

In reality she was the daughter of a former truck driver, using bad cheques, skipping out on hotel bills and blowing other people’s thousands on Net-a-porter, champagne dinners, celebrity personal trainers and lavish holidays. For a while in 2013 she even stayed at the headquarters of that other notorious Instagramera con artist Billy McFarland, the founder of the ill-fated 2017 Fyre Festival, which ended in chaos with guests stuck in disaster relief tents and McFarland sent to prison for multimillion-dollar fraud.

It was the Summer of Scam in 2017. Sorokin’s own audacious act came crashing down that year but it wasn’t until her highly publicised trial in 2019 that the true scale of her crimes became apparent. Sorokin had convinced City National Bank to loan her $100,000 – small change the “heiress” promised to repay within days but blew instead. She had forged bank documents and created a fake financial adviser in a bid to obtain a $22 million loan to fund the Anna Delvey Foundation, the pie-in-the-sky arts club she aimed to create in a six-storey building on Park Avenue South.

She scammed friends, five-star hotels and banks to the tune of $275,000. Prosecutors maintained the

While we wait for her to arrive I confess my worries [to her lawyer] that she’ll run circles around me

ABOVE Fake German heiress Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) at her sentencing. LEFT It didn’t take long after her release from prison for Delvey to get back onto Instagram and Twitter, where she’s gained huge followings.

true sum was probably far higher. Sorokin was found guilty of eight charges and spent more than three years locked up at Rikers Island – a place so brutal that it’s dubbed Torture Island – and Albion Correctional Facility, a prison for women in upstate New York. The party was over.

I

n February, Sorokin was released. Days later she agrees to meet me at the Manhattan office of her lawyer, Todd Spodek. As ordered, I’ve sent a car to collect her from the luxury NoMad hotel where she is temporarily living. This time the hotel bills are being paid upfront by her lawyer, funded with the $320,000 she received for a forthcoming Netflix drama series about her crimes – most of which has gone on paying back the banks she ripped off, plus fines and legal fees.

While we wait for her to arrive I confess my worries to Spodek that she’ll run circles around me.

Has she tried to manipulate him? “Of course. People like Anna just can’t help themselves,” he says.

Following Sorokin’s 2017 crime spree, Spodek argued in court that “there’s a little bit of Anna in all of us”, as if the fake-it-till-you-make-it mentality is endemic in American life. He likened his client to Frank Sinatra, citing the “New York, New York” lyric: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

Sorokin waltzes in wearing new Celine sunglasses, a black coat and clutching a Rick Owens handbag. Sinking on to the sofa, she begins talking about the demands of life on the outside – she is fighting deportation to Germany after US authorities said she had overstayed her visa, an appeal against her conviction is under way, and there are parole conditions to obey, including a 9pm-7am curfew.

She is maddeningly elusive, giggles often and blushes, which creates an endearing air of naivety and innocence. (“I think that’s part of the trap,” Spodek warns later.) Coupled with foreign charm, steely

marieclaire.com.au | 59

2 0 14 - 2 0 1 6

H

er dreams have always been bigger than her horizons. When Sorokin was 15, her family moved from Domodedovo, a city near Moscow, to Eschweiler, a German town she describes as parochial and dull.

“I looked at these people and I thought there is no way that this can be my life,” she says.

She fled for Paris post high school, working as an intern at the uber-cool magazine Purple. It was there that she adopted the Delvey alias. “I just kind of came up with it and it stuck. There was no big plan or scheme behind it,” she explains. The shoulder-rubbing with the rich and beautiful began, and her Instagram following soared. But Paris was too sleepy for her. “In Paris everything is just closed at six. You cannot tell a person, ‘I’m going to give you €500,000. Do this for me now.’ They were like, ‘No, [it’s] family time.

Sorry.’” She craved the 24-hour hustle of New York.

In 2013, with seemingly nowhere else to live, Sorokin stayed at the SoHo headquarters of McFarland’s dodgy credit-card company, Magnises, which charged

60 | marieclaire.com.au

In her early days as Anna Delvey, the scammer-elite’s Instagram was packed with photos of her jet-set life, famous friends and designer clothes.

“I just didn’t want to get famous for some sex scandal. That would be the wrong type of fame. I wanted attention but for the right thing” – Anna Sorokin millennials $250 a year for exclusive entry to events.

Among the glitzy, arty Manhattan circle she infiltrated, Sorokin kept her family background vague. Her father was rumoured to be an oil titan, or a diplomat. (Her parents, who still live in Germany, run a cooling and heating business.)

Sorokin maintains her motive was never money.

“I was power hungry,” she admits. “I just didn’t want to get famous for some sex scandal. That would be the wrong type of fame. I wanted attention but for the right thing,” she tells me.

Sorokin believed that she would pull off the Anna Delvey Foundation, according to Spodek. “Whether she was going to pay everyone back or not, I’ve no idea. Unlikely but possible,” he adds. Either way, the “heiress” indisputably lived the high life, racking up eye watering bills at the 11 Howard and the Beekman hotels. One wealthy acquaintance funded her trip to the Venice Biennale art festival but was never paid back. In 2017 a private jet company was fooled into flying her and her friends on a $35,000 trip to Warren Buffett’s shareholders’ conference in Nebraska, where they crashed the billionaire’s VIP dinner. (“We had a lot of fun. It was great,” Sorokin recalls, grinning.)

Her downfall began in May 2017, when Sorokin invited her friend Rachel DeLoache Williams, then a picture researcher at Vanity Fair magazine, on an “all-expenses-paid” holiday to a $7000-a-night riad in Morocco. Spewing excuses and promises of repayment, Sorokin left her friend with a $62,000 bill. She has no guilt about it and is not legally obligated to pay her back. “If Rachel Williams feels like I need to pay her back, she knows how to find

TEXT AND IMAGES BY LAURA PULLMAN AND GUERIN BLASK / THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE / NEWS LICENSING; INSTAGRAM/@THEANNADELVEY.

bravado and wily intelligence, it’s easy to see how Manhattan’s elite were taken in. “I haven’t met that many people who resemble me,” she says in her unplaceable, trans-European accent. “My ability to handle stress is pretty high and I don’t know where it comes from. I was just always like this.

People who freak out and be dramatic for no reason just annoy me.”

In 2019, a day after being sentenced, she told The New York Times: “I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything.

I regret the way I went about certain things.” Last October she gushed to the parole board: “I just want to say that I’m really ashamed and I’m really sorry for what I did,” and was released from prison early for good behaviour. Yet today, she refuses to answer on the record when I ask her if she feels any shame. A master-manipulator streak is evident. “I enjoy the feeling of control,” she offers.

To her 130,000 or so Instagram followers (@theannadelvey), Sorokin plays up her villainous reputation, even comparing herself to “famous criminals” Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby in her prison blog, Anna Delvey Diaries. But in person she shies away from her criminality. “I never thought everyone would be so outraged,” she says. “I understood I was cutting corners and taking shortcuts, but in my mind I was never doing anything criminal.”

S O CI E T Y

Sorokin has wasted no time getting back into a designer wardrobe after more than three years behind bars.

me,” she quips. DeLoache Williams has since written a book about the fake heiress, My Friend Anna, in which she describes Sorokin as a sociopath – a diagnosis that Sorokin shrugs off.

That July she was arrested for the first time, after leaving thousands of dollars of unpaid hotel bills.

She was released pending a court hearing, but fled to California, where she hid at Passages, a $60,000-a-month rehab clinic. In a satisfying role reversal, DeLoache Williams took part in a sting operation to lure Sorokin out. By chance she was heading to Los Angeles for a photoshoot, and arranged to meet Sorokin for lunch. The police showed up instead – a play even Sorkin describes as “extra”.

O

nce sentenced, she was taken to Rikers Island, where she was dubbed “Princess”. Sorokin recalls a predator versus prey environment: “People will try to test you to see how stupid you are and how far you will go. You kind of need to do some crazy things just to show them and then you’ll just go by your notoriety.” Of the guards she says: “The more you argue with them, the nastier they get. I guess it’s a power trip.” She ended up in solitary confinement, and is vague about why.

The lessons she has taken from jail don’t focus on

contrition or honesty but learning how to blend in and how to survive without a phone. “I learnt how to read people better, for sure,” she says. “You just learn to figure out people’s motives.”

There were reports she had found love behind bars. “I had experiences with, like, relationships with females,” she says tentatively. Her prison stint convinced her that she would like a family one day.

These days, men approach her on social media and she is compiling a questionnaire for prospective boyfriends: “Are you a journalist? Are you a convicted felon? How much of my time do you require?”

An ideal partner would have his own business and a forceful personality. “I’d like someone who would call me out on my bullshit. He can’t be too impressed.”

Inventing Anna, the Netflix drama about Sorokin, comes out later this year and stars Julia Garner, best known for the crime series Ozark, in the lead role. There is also an HBO drama in the pipeline, a West End production titled Anna X starring The Crown’s Emma Corrin, and a book she’s writing about prison: “hopefully someone will buy it and make it a series”. The projects are enabling Sorokin to keep up appearances: using a prison phone just before she got out, she enjoyed a Net-aporter shopping spree, buying, among other things, Celine sunglasses, a Balenciaga hoodie and Alexander McQueen trainers.

She is interested in criminal justice reform (“I want to change the system completely”) and would love to collaborate with Kim Kardashian, the reality TV queen turned prison activist. “Her way of getting to know [the justice system] is study ing to become a lawyer; my way was going to prison.”

She claims to be close with her parents, although they were notably absent during her trial. “I guess I’d have liked them for emotional support, but they were never the people I relied upon,” she says.

“I don’t think they even know 2021 anyone who’s been arrested. My mum, especially, still perceives it as very negative,” she says.

She has apologised to her parents for causing them stress, but sees no need to apologise to anyone else and bristles when asked about regrets. “I’m not coming from a place where I’m saying I did everything right.

Absolutely not. But it feels like I did what I did, at that point I thought it was a good decision and now clearly it was not. I’m now dealing with the consequences of my actions. What else am I supposed to do?”

As we wrap up, Sorokin tells me about Despite her curfew, Sorokin’s Instagram some of the people she met in jail: a account isn’t too different woman who murdered her boyfriend after to how it was before she he posted naked photos of her online; a went to prison. girl who killed an old lady over $20 in a robbery gone wrong. “The scariest part is they’re completely normal,” she says, putting her sunglasses on. “I guess people expect a freak show.”

ACCIDEN

E M OT I ONAL

TAL KILLERS What happens after you unintentionally cause a death?

Shame, secrecy, sorrow and a severe lack of resources mean those who take a life often feel as though they’ve lost theirs, too. By Alexandra English

T

heresa Ruf didn’t mean for it to happen.

She didn’t see the man until after she hit him; even then, she saw the blood and the crumpled motorcycle first. The 42-year-old had been driving home in Illinois one evening in June 2012 when the sun blinded her at the exact moment he slowed to turn into his driveway. At the wheel of her SUV, she felt “a strange impact” and pulled over. She tried to staunch his wounds with her clothing until help arrived. Another driver rushed over and pulled her away. He started to pray — not for the man on the road, but for her: “‘God, protect her; God, give her strength,’” she recalls. “At that point, I completely lost it. [When I heard] him praying for me, I knew the man wouldn’t make it.”

For three days, Ruf hid in a walk-in closet. It was the only way to drown out the sound of traffic, motorcycles especially. She didn’t sleep, she didn’t eat; her husband was at a loss. “I had continual night terrors and flashbacks when I would drift off, and I would wake up screaming,” she says.

The details wouldn’t stop coming: she closed her eyes and saw the road, the man lying on it. “When I was awake, I was constantly crying.” Her husband took her to the emergency room, where she was admitted into a psychiatric facility. She spent six days in a suicide ward where she says no-one could explain what was happening to her.

It’s common among accidental killers — those who were not drunk, distracted or otherwise acting negligently — to experience a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, complete with flashbacks, hallucinations, mental fog, memory loss and nightmares. They also suffer from extreme guilt, self-disgust and what’s known as moral injury: the idea that they are inherently evil and dangerous.

Of course, there is no moral difference between the person who has the near-miss and the person who crashes.

It could happen to anyone. “Most of us cannot comprehend taking someone’s life, and then, accidentally, we do it,” says Sarah Godfrey, a psychologist and co-chair of the

marieclaire.com.au | 63

EMOTI ONA L

Australian counselling service GriefLine. In her clinical practice, she has seen clients who have accidentally killed another person and says the effects are “enormous and distressing”. “Suddenly, we’re in a different category – I’m a person who has taken someone’s life. We slide into this grey area: I’m not a murderer, but I have taken a life away. It’s a strange psychological space to be sitting in: lost between Theresa Ruf those who don’t and those who intentionally do.” (right) struggled Those lost in that space are also often left to for years to find the right wander alone. There are self-help books for seemingly professional every affliction (for the sober curious and the finansupport after her cially unfit, to those dealing with heartbreak, or a accident. closet that doesn’t spark joy), yet none for anyone who has accidentally killed someone. In the US, police, social workers and hospital staff receive no training on treating people involved in accidental fatalities.

The story isn’t so different in Australia. A spokesperson for Beyond Blue said: “We don’t have resources another. “He initially tried to pin the blame entirely or people with experience in that specific area.” on himself, and I said, ‘No, there are two adults “In my 20 years as a psychologist, I haven’t seen involved here,’” Emma says. “We were at fault, even any niche in psychology or help lines that support though there was no intent.” those who have unintentionally caused a death,” A common refrain among the people marie claire Godfrey says. “That doesn’t mean they spoke to was that being told it was don’t exist somewhere, but it is an area “just an accident” was painful to hear in need of attention.” no matter how well-intentioned. “It There’s also a lack of research. A was the worst thing anyone could say deep dive into Google reveals very to me,” Ruf says. “It underplays the little by way of data on the number of significance of the event; it diminishes people who have caused an accidental the value of the person lost, and the death or injury (referred to as CADIs). grief and the survivor’s guilt that we According to the Australian Bureau of are enduring.” Godfrey has seen this in Statistics, between 2015 and 2019, her clients, too. “An accident is spilt there were more than 36,600 accidenmilk or tripping someone,” she says.

– Emma Cockburn tal deaths in Australia. However, data “Those small things aren’t relevant if collection agencies don’t capture any you’ve taken a life. The magnitude of information about how many of those were caused by what you’ve done is so enormous that you can’t just another person. Of those 36,600, we don’t know, for be told, ‘Don’t blame yourself.’” instance, how many were the result of a single-car Also common is a fixation on punishment. Wendy crash, unsupervised home maintenance, or children Liu, a Sydney-based grief counsellor who has worked being left unattended for a regrettable split second. with the coroner, has met people in the immediate How many of those deaths were at the hands of aftermath of accidentally causing a death. She says someone who didn’t mean to do it, who walked accidental killers feel an intense urge to do penance, away physically unharmed but forever changed? which can often make things worse. “I met a father How many people caused the death of a stranger, and who had accidentally caused the death of someone how many caused the death of someone they loved? else’s child, and he went on to leave his family – including his child – because he believed that was the ultimate self-punishment: denying himself somemma and Peter Cockburn were living in a thing he loved so much,” she says. There’s also often quiet country town in New South Wales the debilitating fear of karmic retribution; if we take with four daughters under six. The youngsomething from another person, something of equal est, Georgina, was 15 months old. One or greater value will be taken from us. afternoon in April 2011, Emma secured the Ruf, too, stumbled over the penance block. girls inside and went to mow the back lawn, return“I emailed the State Attorney and told him that ing frequently to check on them. About 5.30pm, she although I didn’t do anything illegal, I wanted to be caught a glimpse of Peter returning home, reversing put away. That was the only thing I could imagine his ute and trailer down the side of the house. “The would bring satisfaction to the man’s family,” she next thing I know, Pete is running through the back says. She wasn’t far off the mark. Despite her being gate screaming that he’d run over Georgy,” she recalls. initially cleared of any wrongdoing, the family filed The toddler had somehow gotten into the garage and a wrongful death lawsuit, and six months later Ruf gone inside as Pete was backing in. “We ran into the was charged with reckless homicide. After eight garage and did CPR and called the ambulance,” years of rescheduled court dates and countless other Emma remembers. “We prayed for a miracle we knew delays, she accepted the lesser charge of reckless wasn’t going to happen.” While Emma and Peter were driving. She was fined, sentenced to two weeks in saying hreatbreaking goodbyes to their daughter, jail, community service and two years’ probation.

Peter suggested they make a pact: never to blame one

“We called the ambulance and prayed for a miracle we knew wasn’t going to happen”

E

SLUG

FROM LEFT Emma and Peter Cockburn with their daughters at Georgina’s christening; one-yearold Georgy; Maryann Gray, whose online support group helps hundreds of people who have accidentally caused a death.

GETTY IMAGES. COURTESY THE GEORGINA JOSEPHINE FOUNDATION; THERESA RUFF; MARYANN GRAY.

I

n June 1977, 22-year-old Maryann Gray had just dropped out of Miami University, Ohio, to live in a dilapidated Victorian mansion in Cincinnati with a bunch of other kids. She had spent the day painting her new bedroom an optimistic yellow, and was driving back to her old apartment when she saw something flash in front of her and felt a sickening bump. “A little boy just ran into the road, and I tried to swerve and go around him, but I couldn’t, and I hit him,” she recalls. After police cleared her of any wrongdoing, they left her to find her own way home.

“I spent weeks in a state of acute stress where I just couldn’t stop thinking and had a lot of intrusive imagery,” she says. “It took over everything; I could barely function.” Two years later, she moved to California and didn’t speak about the accident again for close to 25 years. In 2003, she heard about an incident in which a driver was copping public hatred for an accident, and was moved to talk about her experience on the radio. “People started coming out of the woodwork, telling me they or someone they knew had done something,” she says. “I had never talked to anybody else who had unintentionally killed someone – it was such a powerful experience.”

As much for her healing as for others’, Gray decided to start an online support group and resource hub called Accidental Impacts. She’s done nothing to publicise it, but – having no competitors – it comes up as one of the first results on Google and gets about 100 hits a day. People go there to post stories of car crashes, guns going off, children being forgotten for a fatal instant. Often, people share their experience for the first time, with some posting a few days after the accident, others several decades. The support group was so desperately needed that now Gray is president of the Accidental Impacts corporation and hosts monthly fellowship meetings. She also wants to start a mentorship program.

Ruf and the Cockburns have all visited Gray’s site.

“When I was hiding in that walk-in closet, I found Accidental Impacts, and I found comfort in people’s stories,” says Ruf, who struggled to find appropriate and adequate support in the aftermath of her accident. Adds Emma Cockburn: “There’s nothing in Australia that I know of like Maryann Gray’s website that is for someone who’s caused the death uninten-

tionally. “I don’t know if anyone else is doing the same here, but I do know that support is needed.”

(In response to this story, Godfrey and the GriefLine board started a private, moderated online forum for CADIs, where “we can help people and give them advice”, she says. Visit griefline.org.au/forums.)

The Cockburns are doing their best to fill the gaps where professional services fall short by establishing the Georgina Josephine Foundation.

They visit playgroups and learner-driver sessions to increase awareness of low-speed vehicle runover accidents. They also send out information packages with their contact details to local police stations whenever they hear of an accident in the media. “We want to give them the chance to talk to Peter or me because we found it helpful to talk to other people who had been through it in the weeks after our accident,” Emma explains. In running the foundation, Emma says it’s also helped her grieving process.

“It wasn’t necessarily to keep Georgy’s memory alive, but it’s had that effect. It’s healing to turn something negative into something positive.”

Ruf has taken a similar approach with her private online group, Accidental Casualty Survivors, where people can sign up anonymously or with their real name to discuss their stories and treatments they’ve tried. “We’re like an odd family, in a way,” she says.

The work to remove shame and stigma shouldn’t rest only on the shoulders of those who’ve experienced an accidental death. Godfrey says a cultural and societal shift towards acceptance is crucial. “We’re not machines, we are imperfect, we do chaotic things, and we live in a chaotic world,” she says. “When we read stories about these accidents, instead of being caught up in the drama and the horror, we need to find compassion and sympathy for both sides.”

Ruf adds that it’s important to acknowledge and validate someone’s pain. “Tell them you realise they are hurting in unimaginable ways and that you will do everything you can to help them,” she says. “Please don’t abandon them. They will feel unworthy of life, much less of friendship, so you may have to insist on remaining by their side. No-one can or should have to go through this alone.”

Lifeline 13 11 14; GriefLine 1300 845 745

marieclaire.com.au | 65

SEX, revisited With a Sex and the City reboot in the works, we asked four writers to answer some of Carrie Bradshaw’s most seminal questions through the lens of 2021. Because we couldn’t help but wonder …

I

the known. It’s the awaret’s been 23 years since ness of the sliding-door Carrie Bradshaw’s married alternative reality within friend exposed himself to each of us and the worry her in the Hamptons. It that it might have been was the catalyst for a cock of better another way. When a her famous curls and the mussingle woman scoffs at her ing: “Is there a secret cold war married friends for moving between marrieds and sinto the suburbs, she’s not gles?” While the intervening pointing the missile at them, decades have ushered in more but at the part of herself that flexible ideas of coupledom wonders what life would than those posed in Sex and have been like had she made the City, the question remains: a different decision someis there an unspoken enmity where along the way. And between the have (partners) when a person who is marand have-nots?

B Y B E K D AY ried with kids chuckles rueFirstly, it must be said: fully at the “selfish” lifestyle marriage is meaningless. As their unattached friend gets to live, they’re focused on someone who’s been happily married for 10 years, I their insecurities and unaddressed grief for a life that have the necessary credentials to make that statement. is no longer within reach.

This isn’t to say relationships are meaningless – far In 2021, there’s still hope for bridging the distance from it. The years we’ve shared have been enriching between the camps. For example, we can recognise and transformative. But marriage itself? It does noththat platonic relationships are just as valid as romaning to define who we are as people. tic ones, and we can address the social and financial Carrie concluded that it isn’t hatred fuelling the hardships that come with single life. Firstly though, cold war but fear of the unknown. Here is where Ms we need to dismantle the laser targets of insecurity Bradshaw and I disagree. we have constantly aimed at our own decisions. The The unspoken battle between singles and the couwar is over – we just haven’t told our self-doubt. pled-up is not about fear of the unknown, but fear of

“Is there a secret cold war between marrieds and SINGLES?”

TA L K IN G P O IN T

S

“Are we simply romantically challenged, or are we SLUTS?”

itting down to coffee with a friend at a cafe, with the sun streaming through the auburn leaves, I was telling her about my recent sexual encounters when she paused and considered me.

“Courtney, you know what I’m really excited for? The day you come to me and say you’ve met someone you really like and are excited about.”

BY COURTNEY THOMPSON Her comment tells you everything you need to know about my love life, full of men who are a mix of rude, annoying and subpar to the point where I struggle to recall their names. They are, I’ll admit, numerous and even worse, incredibly forgettable. Which hadn’t been a problem until my friend’s remark made me realise how often I came to her with these kinds of stories.

She got me thinking: am I simply romantically challenged, or am I a slut?

The truth is, I’m probably both. But let’s go back 20 years to when a woman asked the same question under different circumstances.

Her name was Carrie, and she’d been dating furniture designer and perennial Good Guy Aidan for a couple of weeks. The problem? They hadn’t done the deed, and she was dumbfounded by his reticence to have sex. When she raised it with him, he reasoned that he was holding off because he was simply being a In today’s dating landscape, where “dating” is romantic. This prompted her to ask: “If you’re a taken to mean you’re casual and “hooking up” to mean you’re very casual, there has been an even greater thirtysomething woman living in Manhattan and you relaxation of the expectation that sex means anything. refuse to settle, and you’re sexually active, it’s inevitaLiberated from the shackles that confined our sexual ble that you’ll rack up a certain number of partners, exploration to heterosexual, monogamous relationbut how many men is too many men? Are we simply ships headed for matrimony, we’ve been gifted with romantically challenged, or are we sluts?” the knowledge that the amount of sex we have has no Firstly, Carrie’s invocation of ‘slut’ as an insult bearing on our moral value, and that sex can mean speaks volumes about how much has changed when it whatever we want it to, minus the shame. We can be comes to how society views a woman who likes to get both romantically challenged and sluts, or we can be it on. Now, let’s pause to consider her enquiry. Can a sluts who are romantic, or we can just be sluts. Not healthy sex life obscure your ability to recognise, or only is worrying about your number of sexual parteven appreciate, romance? Carrie and Aidan’s trajecners more embarrassing than worrying about your tory seems to suggest that romance and sex are, to an ATAR, but it’s actually pointless. As with most things extent, mutually exclusive. By waiting more than 10 in life, the issue isn’t with quantity but quality. days (!!) to have sex, their relationship is somehow My friend’s comment concerned me not because of inherently more special, more intimate, more serious. how many men I’m sleeping with, but because they’re At the end of the Sex and the City episode in which all shitheads who don’t deserve an invitation back to this situation unfolds, Aidan stays over the night and bed. There’s nothing wrong with being a slut, but it Carrie admits she was nervous to have sex that would can be easy to confuse our right to have as much sex as “mean something”. This is all fine! The problem here we want with the assumption it’ll always be amazing. isn’t with waiting, it’s with the in-baked (and, yes, Reminding ourselves to check in on the quality of our slut-shaming) assumption that you can’t be a romanpartners will only improve our encounters. I’m excited tic and a slut at the same time. for the day I can tell my friend about a new guy I like, but I live confident in the knowledge that being a slut won’t hinder the chances of that happening.

marieclaire.com.au | 67

A

s Carrie Bradshaw teeters on the edge of a sky-high platform overlooking the Hudson River, her fear is palpable. She’s on assignment at a New York trapeze school, flying breezily through the air but paralysed with terror when it comes time to let go of the bar and attempt a catch. Like most of Carrie’s outlandish subplots, it’s a metaphor for life: she has swung into her mid-thirties, and a very specific angst has taken hold. “When you’re young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun,” she later taps away on her Mac. “Then you grow up and you learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart.

You look before you leap and sometimes you don’t leap at all because there’s no-one there to catch you.”

It’s a musing as true and timeless as Carrie’s Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, and as a fellow single, childless woman in her thirties, I feel the pang in her gut.

My twenties were footloose and fancy-free, underlined by a belief that everything would eventually work out. Mishaps, slip-ups and break-ups were just twists in my story that would ultimately lead to “the real thing”. A dating disaster was a funny tale to regale to your friends, not a major blow to your confidence nor your trust in love.

There was still time.

Moving through your 30s, it’s the very notion of time that can be stifling. The tick of your biological clock beats in the background, accelerated by media scare-mongering and a societal obsession with female fertility and youth.

There’s a very finite winstring of glittering parties and dow for us to do it all – find trips to Dior – although she did the guy, have babies, climb live in New York in the wake of the career ladder, start a another tragedy, 9/11. side hustle – and it’s hard to And perhaps therein lies the escape the fact that our B Y K AT H R Y N M A D D E N real catch. We tend to look back actions today will shape on years gone by as the golden our future. Meanwhile, a age and glory days when, in reality, fear is a pretty unitangle of previous heartbreaks and aches start to swell versal constant. In the upcoming SATC reboot, will inside you, and just when you’re ready to shake it all off, Carrie reminisce about her free and insouciant thirties, you realise that the avenues you once relied on for fun a decade filled with potential? Probably. Which is not have dwindled. Seemingly overnight, lives diverge and to dismiss the very real anxiety that defines this era for friendships change, and cosmopolitans – ahem, many women – author Nell Frizzell dubbed it “The Camparis – on a Friday night are no longer a sure thing.

Panic Years”. I guess the real question worth examinSex and the City was ahead of its time in portraying is how we deal with that panic. Do we seize up and ing the pressures (and pleasures) of the single life, but shut down, or keep living and leaping? For Carrie, it’s perhaps in 2021 things are a little scarier: Instagram about fronting back up to the trapeze school and letting serves us images of the picture-perfect lives we don’t herself fail and fall, then reclining back in the safety – and may never – have, and apps have seen dating dip net, laughing, as her best friends cheer her on. Because to new soul-crushing lows. Then there’s the dreaded if our ever-hopeful heroine taught us one thing, it’s that C-word, the global pandemic that ripped all notions fear only trumps fun when you give in and let it. of fun from the world, while Carrie’s life seemed like a

“When did it stop being fun and start being SCARY?”

TA L K IN G P O IN T

A

million years ago, when I was a young “up and coming” stand-up comedian, I used to perform a joke about an ex-boyfriend who had told me I was “an animal in bed”. Naturally, I asked, “What animal?” to which he replied, “Sloth.” When I’d perform the joke, I genuinely found it very funny to recount on stage, but the way it actually played out wasn’t so humorous. I was 18 years old and being told I didn’t know how to fuck properly!

Obviously, I cried! But I remember coming home that B Y N I N A O YA M A day and vowing to myself that I would learn to be good in bed – at literally any cost.

My approach was slightly different to that of Carrie, who – after hearing that a man had fallen asleep during sex with Charlotte – couldn’t help but wonder: “How do you know if you’re good in bed?” I’ve always been a do-er, rather than a dweller.

So I broke up with my boyfriend, and that summer I did everyone I possibly could. You know how you need to do 120 hours of driving before you can take the wheel on your own? I probably clocked 120 hours in bed. It was like studying for the Sex Championships, and I had a prize to win.

I say “studying” because, while having a lot of sex was fun, I was also learning what people liked. The whole time I was running around the city and being a proud slut, I was trying to figure out how I could do the exact thing that would make the other person feel good. And from my travels, I have noticed a common thread among people who I’ve slept with: the ones who say they are good in bed are not.

It’s like the Dunning-Kruger effect – when idiots think they are super smart because they aren’t selfaware enough to know otherwise. Proclaiming that you are Good in Bed is a red flag and only sets you up for failure. When Carrie asked, “How do you know you’re good in bed?” it was Samantha who said, “I’ve never met a man who was bad in bed who was good at life.” And she made some points.

It’s that mediocre white man confidence, when guys believe they are good at things but are actually terrible, and they never get better because it never occurs to them that they could be bad. Ultimately, being good in bed is about caring about your partner and making them feel comfortable and safe. And even then, sex often falls outside the good/bad binary.

Either way, anyone who tells you you’re a sloth in bed doesn’t deserve the honour of sleeping with you.

GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF HBO.

“How do you KNOW if you’re good in BED?”

marieclaire.com.au | 69

THE

NIGHT T H AT

CHANGED ME

F I RS T P E RS O N

Acclaimed author Kathryn Heyman’s confronting and compelling new memoir, Fury, is the story of finding courage in a culture that doesn’t see heroism in the shape of a girl. Here, she charts the traumatic event that changed the course of her life and fuelled her determination to challenge a predatory male world

T

he party was in Sydney, in an apartment full of people I didn’t know.

Beautiful people, funny people, smart people.

A friend, Penny, had dragged me along. I do remember what I was wearing. I’ll always remember that, I suppose.

Earlier that year I’d found, in a charity shop, a green-and-black-checked vinyl trench coat with a pointed collar and a neat belt. Inside the vinyl I sweated like the inside of a car, but it was worth it. I had a little skirt on underneath, and green pointed boots. I kept drinking, waiting for someone to notice me, to speak to me, to find me funny, or interesting, or to like my careful green trench, to notice how witty it was, how ironic. But none of these things happened.

Penny stayed in the kitchen, running her hand down the arm of someone called Jeff. She tilted her head back and laughed, revealing the long line of her throat. That head tilt, that laugh, that hand slipping easily down a muscled arm: I couldn’t do it, couldn’t quite understand it. When I tried, the laugh came out broken, the hand too firm on the arm, the head thrown back so fiercely that I could hear my own neck crick. I’d watched it right through high school but even now, at 20, I still couldn’t understand it. It looked like a performance, all of it – the hair flicking, the gathering in giggling groups, the coded language. But I’d somehow missed the rehearsal notes.

I’d brought cheap wine, shared with

Penny. She’d brought me. As an audience? As the plainer friend? She was a girl who’d got the rehearsal notes.

The wine went quickly. I perched on the sofa, smiling mysteriously with my lips closed over my crooked teeth.

I’d read, in Rolling Stone, a description of a famous woman, the muse to a musician, who could stand alone in a crowd looking completely calm, completely contained. Sometimes I stood in front of my mirror, experimenting with looking contained, mysterious. If I was lucky – mysterious enough but approachable enough – I might get to be a muse.

Sometime after midnight, I emptied the second bottle and trip-trapped to the kitchen. Penny was tangled in Jeff, her mouth swallowed, her hands on his neck. I stood in the doorway and waited.

After a while, Penny turned her head to me, eyebrows raised, and said, “What?” I said, “I think I’m ready to go.” “Then go.” I opened my mouth to say, “I don’t know where I am, or how to get home,” and then I closed it again. I felt for the folded notes in my

THE PARTY WAS FULL OF STRANGERS. BUT THE STRANGER WHO WAS DANGEROUS WAS NOT IN THAT ROOM

pocket. The party was on the outskirts of town. The party was full of strangers. But the stranger who was dangerous was not in that room.

Outside, the air vibrates with the wetness of spring. Lights blur in and out of focus: cars, streetlights? I can’t tell; can barely tell which is sky and which is road. Both are black, shining with the reflection of a plump moon.

Nonetheless, I’m sober enough to think this: I need a taxi. It will no doubt use the last of my week’s wages, the small amounts I eke out daily. But still. It’s hard for me to inhabit my own skin, now, looking back at this staggering, arm-waving girl. Sometimes, now, I see them on the street, girls like me, barely able to stand, and I want to, it’s true, wrap a cardigan around their shoulders, take them home to sleep it off, to sober up. I cannot look at these girls without a rush of fear.

I can barely look back at myself, at my shiny coat, my green boots, my bare thighs pimpling in the cool air, my ridiculous faith that the world would take care of me.

Everything is soft: the air, the night, the ground, my legs, my tongue.

My hand loose, the arm beneath it unsteady, the ground beneath my feet billowing gently. If the story had been different, if the ending to the evening were different, I would remember this night – if I remembered it at all – as one of many warm spring nights, blending in casual reminiscence.

Jasmine scenting the darkness, balmy air on the arms, the pleasures of youth.

marieclaire.com.au | 71

L

ater, when they ask me what I recall, I will try to tell them. I will try to make it seem that I do remember, because that is what they tell me to do.

The Crown prosecutor, who is allegedly on my side, tells me this just before he tells me for the third time that I am not on trial. He keeps his eyes on the windowsill behind me, or on the papers on his desk. He says, “What do you recollect? Try.” Then, glancing down at my too-tight top, he adds, “Is there anything you need to tell me? Is this what you were wearing?” I wore French knickers, the kind with loose legs. I loved them, the way they slid and slipped against my skin, the cut of them wide and free like 1930s tennis shorts. Penny, the friend who took me to the party, gave them to me as a birthday gift. She’d wrapped them in thin tissue paper and wrote a note on a piece of card: Something beautiful for a beautiful year. Silky, soft; they were a lustrous pearl colour, the shine of them reflecting the light. I suppose they reflected the streetlights outside as the taxi swerved across the white lines. Perhaps the light of his wedding ring was reflected too.

But anyway, when the clammy prosecutor asks me what I remember, the truth is that I recall only this: the slapping of the air, the whirring of the lights, the rushing of the ground.

Everything is thick and slow, my movements dulled by the cheap wine.

My clawing at the soft air, the taxi lights coming closer, the safe and familiar white of the taxi swerving towards the kerb. Like a painting, or a cinema poster, this part of that night carries a semi-lit haze over it. And his face, leaning across, peering through the window, smiling. A smooth face, warm, bearded. I do remember his face. I don’t make that up. Sweat sheening on his forehead.

I’m in the front seat of the taxi.

This is Australia. We are egalitarian here. Years after this, when I live in Oxford and jump in and out of black cabs, I will feel myself unfurl with gratitude for the windows dividing passengers from drivers in taxis, the back seat so clearly separated.

My vinyl coat, so ’60s, so retrochic, sticks against my skin in the warmth of the taxi. Perhaps I ask him to turn the air conditioning down. My

GLANCING DOWN AT MY TOO-TIGHT TOP, HE ADDS, “IS THERE ANYTHING YOU NEED TO TELL ME? IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE WEARING?”

memories now, like the memories of very early childhood, are without words, are purely bodily memories, a series of sensations in the dim dark.

Heat. Light. Swerve. Sick. The formation of a single word: No. I must wriggle out of the coat, out of the stickiness of it, or at least drunkenly get half an arm out. When I am picked up later, I have one arm in and one arm out, holding my hands up in the middle of the road while the headlights of another car bear down.

It’s that second taxi driver who I remember, his arm beneath mine, his grey hair curled around his ears.

Running, shouting. Somehow, I remember – or imagine – that he wears striped pants, too baggy for his skinny frame. Orange flashes across the road, his hazard lights blinking on, off, where he stopped short in the middle of the lane, running from the car to the girl, me – stumbling, tumbling, in the centre of the road. His hands under my arms as I buckle. A towel retrieved from the boot of the car and wrapped around my bleeding leg; his cardigan draped over my shoulders.

“I have a daughter your age,” he

says. “If anyone ever – if they tried to –” He stops, looks away.

I wonder what it must be like to have a father who cannot speak for love of you.

By then, the cold air, the crunch of gravel, the shock of my own scream – I think that these things have sharpened me, woken me from the dull daze.

But perhaps they have not. Because I also remember this: the grainy brown counter of the police station, my hands spread out, while I say, “I’ve been –” I stop then, try to gather myself. Pat at my hair, attempt to wipe at the makeup that I know will be smeared panda-like beneath my eyes.

“I think I've been raped.”

The sergeant in charge is not young. Tall and frowning, he makes me think of my father, himself a policeman. Disappointed, held upright by a thread which could be anger, and with a long, horse-like face. Full of bluff and blunder.

His eyebrows are grey, scraggling across his forehead as he raises them.

Holding his hands up, trying to slow me down. “Whoa. Let’s start at the beginning.” I repeat my words, trying for more certainty, trying for the beginning.

“I’ve been raped.” The words feel wrong in my mouth, as though the active person in the sentence is me,

F I RS T P E RS O N

ABOVE The author,

GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF KATHRYN HEYMAN.

Kathryn Heyman.

being raped, rather than the man doing the raping.

The tall constable leans across the counter, looking me over as though I’m a second-hand car. He says, “I don’t know about that, girly, but you’ve certainly been drinking.”

This man, I think, is wasted on the front desk. With his investigative skills, he should have been a detective.

I’ve lost count of what I drank at the party. I’ve long ago lost count of the number of times I’d been called girl, or girly. But, because on some level I understand that I am being assessed here, in this vomit-coloured police station, I am careful with my words.

“Yes,” I say, “I have.” I try to make it sound apologetic, and then I add, “But I've also been raped.” I correct myself again: “I think I’ve been raped.”

“You think,” he says, his lip stretching back across his teeth, like my father’s mare when he bridled her, her head tossing, her eyes turning white. “It’s the kind of thing you might be certain of.”

I

n the dark of the taxi, the alcohol swarms through my blood, my head tipped back against the vinyl of the car seat. Warmth floods over me and my tongue becomes heavy, my head begins to nod. I assume – but I can't be

certain – that I give the driver the address before I drunkenly flop.

I think I do. I think I wave my hand and slur the suburb.

I’m vaguely aware of him turning the music up, his hand on the radio dial. Vaguely aware, too, of the way his hand brushes against my leg as he moves it back to the wheel. But then the road is stretching ahead, and the lights outside are flickering, and the taxi takes a turn and another, and then my mouth drops open, and my head bounces lightly against the window.

I am drifting, dropping into the depths. Like a dream, when you’re aware of being in a dream, but also wanting to be awake. Those dreams when you can hear people talking, when you try to open your mouth and say, “I’m here, I’m right here, I can hear you, I’m not asleep at all.” The terror of those dreams, of trying to claw up to consciousness.

This is where I am, down in the deep, with something troubling me, calling me up to consciousness. My legs sprawling, there is the sensation of another brush across my thighs. I close my eyes tighter, turn slightly in the seat. A hand now, squeezing my leg. Sloppily, I slap at the air.

Alcohol has numbed my tongue, made it heavy in my mouth, so that the word “Stop” comes out as “Stoooiii.”

But it does not matter because he does not hear me or my words; he does not feel my hand batting at the air. Or, more precisely, he does not care to hear that or to feel this. Now, when I try to bring this to mind, it’s still the swirl of the street that comes back to me, the way the taxi veers off course as the driver slips his finger into the shiny silkiness of my new knickers.

Now I assume it is his own excitement that makes him swerve, his panting sheening face unable to concentrate equally well on the road.

It is the swerving that brings me more to myself, with a dip of my stomach matching the lurch and then the sudden stop of the car, the wheels skidding slightly. Deep down, in my deep-down-dozy-drunken self, the lurching echoes. I can still feel the twist of nausea now, all these years later. There is a tear, a tug, the resistance of the buttons on the knickers. A small pop as one button gives way, rolling to the floor.

And then, a heavier lurch, the stab of pain inside me, my vaginal canal forced open, the breath of the taxi driver on my face, his beard on my nose, his voice, his breath, and the thrust of in-out-in-out. My body is limp, my limbs not entirely obedient, but I flail at him.

Arms and legs, both, begin to obey the slow and slurred commands from my brain, and though there is little strength in me, my sudden buckling, my fists tearing at his hair, startles him. Enough, anyway, that I am able to shove against the door and tumble out, backwards, like a worm, landing buckled on gravel, tearing the skin from my shins and from my hands.

Stones lodge in my knees as I scrabble, hauling myself up to all fours, stumbling to my feet. I run, then, pitching towards the road, towards the gleam of headlights growing closer, making holes in the darkness.

This is an edited extract from Fury: A Memoir, by Kathryn Heyman (Allen & Unwin, $29.99), out now.

marieclaire.com.au | 73

She went from Summer Bay soap star to Hollywood heavyweight and comedy queen. Isla Fisher chats to Kathryn Madden about humour, her husband and why Australia will always be home PHOTOGRAPHED BY NICOLE BENTLEY STYLED BY NAOMI SMITH

Gucci bra, briefs, top, and shoes, gucci.com; Bvlgari earrings (front), and rings, bulgari.com; Isla’s own earrings (all jewellery worn throughout).

Chanel jacket and skirt, 1300 242 635.

IN T E RV IE W

of screenwriter Charles Condomine (Dan Stevens), who accidentally summons his ex-wife, Elvira (Leslie Mann), back from the dead – and hilarity ensues.

“It was so nice to read a script where the language was rich, layered and witty, especially given the fact we all communicate in emoticons these days,” says Fisher. Being cast alongside “our greatest living actress”, Dame Judi Dench – who plays an eccentric clairvoyant – was also a major drawcard. Fisher deadpans that Dench is actually a big fan of Home and Away and took on the project to work with her, then erupts into giggles. “I had to film two really big scenes with her and I kept saying to myself, ‘Fisher, don’t you forget your lines!’” she remembers. “And it was almost like she picked up on that energy, and she made a really funny dirty joke that put me right at ease. She’s got the most fantastic sense of humour.

From that moment on I just relaxed and it was a masterclass, watching Dame Judi Dench perform.”

While the film is largely loyal to the original, five-foot-three with her heels kicked off, Isla Fisher Fisher points out that it’s had a subtle feminist knows how to embrace her shortcomings. On the set rewrite. “With a 1941 text and two women fighting of our photo shoot, she emerges from the dressing over a man, some 2020 updates were needed,” she room in an ice-pink Chanel suit that swamps her tiny says. “There’s a twist to ensure that the women are frame. But no matter for the star, who smiles coyly, empowered and have a bigger impact on the outcome crosses her arms and cinches in the blazer at her – they’re not just victims of circumstance.” waist, swaying to the beat of Beyoncé’s “Grown Shot in London in mid-2019, the movie’s Woman” as the camera clicks away. sumptuous glamour and easy escapism couldn’t It’s a trick, she tells me with a raspy laugh, that come at a better time. This time last year, Fisher she picked up at clown school. “I studied at Jacques was locked down with her family in Los Angeles.

Lecoq theatre school in Paris and one of the things She’s quick to note that she doesn’t want to complain we worked on was embracing our [so-called flaws],” about her position, though being holed up at home says Fisher. “Because I’m short, I’d wear very big with three young children had its challenges. clothes that would drag on the floor – and I turned “Homeschooling,” she muses. “Let’s just say I found that into a side gag. I learnt to embrace my size. The grade four long division very hard!” things I once tried to hide have ended up being the The fact that her husband was away for 70 days things that differentiate me.” filming Borat Subsequent Moviefilm put double the Years later, on the set of 2005’s Wedding pressure on Fisher’s mathematical nous. Baron Crashers, she shunned suggestions to stand on a box Cohen revived his controversial character for the next to her co-star Vince Vaughn, who towered over political mockumentary, reportedly rushing to get her at six-foot-four. The ridiculous height gap proved it made and released before the 2020 US election. part of the gag and, together with Fisher’s bubbly “It was hard for me [while he was away], but Sacha energy and sharp comic timing, it cemented her big was very kind in not sharing what he break into Hollywood. Since then the intended to shoot each day,” Fisher Australian actor – who first graced says of her husband’s outrageous our screens on Home and Away in the pranks, designed to expose prejudice mid-’90s – has worked widely and in modern America. “He’d wait until steadily, filling her résumé with he was back home safely and then say, romcoms (Definitely, Maybe and ‘Oh, I was at a pro-gun rally, everyone Confessions of a Shopaholic), period was carrying guns.’ I’m so grateful I dramas (The Great Gatsby), thrillers didn’t know before, so I didn’t have to (Nocturnal Animals) and actionworry.” Later, footage emerged of comedies (Keeping Up with the Joneses and The Brothers Grimsby).

Baron Cohen leading a racist singIn Grimsby she shared the screen along at that event, then racing into a with her husband, actor and satirist getaway car in a bulletproof vest after – Isla Fisher Sacha Baron Cohen; together they’ve armed protesters realised his identity. been dubbed a Hollywood power But the dangerous endeavour proved couple, a label that Fisher laughs off shyly. worth it – some speculate that the film helped topple This month sees the 45-year-old flex her comedy Trump, and it picked up two Golden Globe awards. muscle once more in Blithe Spirit, a film adaptation The couple first met at a showbiz party in Sydney of the classic 1941 Noël Coward play. It’s a fizzy farce in 2002. Baron Cohen told The New York Times that set in 1930s Britain, all slapstick, screwball fun with a they bonded over “taking the mick” out of other, side of the supernatural. Fisher plays Ruth, housewife pretentious guests. They married in a tiny ceremony

At

“She made a dirty joke that put me right at ease ... It was a masterclass, watching Judi Dench perform”

marieclaire.com.au | 77

Louis Vuitton dress, au.louisvuitton.com.

“I feel like I can be myself in Australia – I love the people, the colours, the tastes, the smells ... It feels very magical” – Isla Fisher

Sportmax dress, world.sportmax.com; Bvlgari Serpenti bracelet, bulgari.com; Isla’s own wedding ring.

Sportmax dress, world.sportmax.com; Bvlgari Serpenti bracelets, bulgari.com.

GETTY IMAGES. HAIR BY TRAVIS BALCKE/SAUNDERS & CO. MAKEUP BY VICTORIA BARON/MAP. MANICURE BY JOCELYN PETRONI.

IN T E RV IE W

in Paris in 2010 – after Fisher converted to Judaism – and next year they’ll celebrate 20 years together, a lifetime by Hollywood standards. Is there a secret to their lasting relationship? “I wish I had an answer.

I’m very lucky to have met him,” Fisher says, suddenly bashful. “I definitely think humour helps.”

Fisher is famously guarded about her personal life, and before this interview she politely requests that we don’t name her children. “I think all parents are trying to protect their kids, especially in the social media age,” she explains. “I want our children to have a normal childhood – being able to play outside without pressure or scrutiny. All kids have the right to just be kids, and I would never sell a film or magazine by speaking about [mine]. Motherhood is actually my favourite topic – but I keep it private.”

Fisher’s own childhood was filled with stories and adventure. Born in Oman, in the Middle East, to Scottish parents (her dad was a United Nations banker and her mum was a novelist), she moved to Perth at age six and quickly started honing her humour. “I was short with big ears and had an English accent,” she recalls. “I went to a different school every year from elementary through middle and I had to learn to be funny to make friends.”

Growing up with two brothers and two step-brothers prepared her for the rejection she’d inevitably face in her career. “As an actor you’re told you’re not sporty enough to play a superhero, or you’re not tall enough to play a siren,” she says. “Whatever the excuse they gave me, my brothers had already prepared me by pointing out my failings during adolescence! I had a thicker skin when I got into show business and that may have helped with the longevity of my career.”

Despite now moving in A-list circles – she counts Courteney Cox as a close friend and once rented Jennifer Aniston’s LA home – Fisher insists she doesn’t feel, nor succumb to, typical Hollywood beauty pressures. “I think it’s because I often work in comedy where there’s more space for me to be [different]. But I’m also very good at tuning out those voices if I don’t agree with them.”

The place where she can truly tune out and switch off is on the white sand beaches of her homeland, where she has temporarily relocated with her family.

“I feel like I can be myself in Australia,” she says. “I love the people. I love the colours and the sights and the taste and the smells. And there’s something about being home which is just … it feels very magical.

I miss it so much when I’m away and I have a very Australian sensibility. Whenever I meet another Aussie, I always think, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re twins!’”

Today, Australia has been dubbed Aussiewood, swarming with stars who’ve made the move Down Under to work on film and TV productions. So how does Fisher think the big-name celebrities will find us Aussie bogans? “Hollywood actors just feel so lucky to be in Australia right now,” she says, laughing. “Americans always comment on how hard-working Aussie crews are. The government and people handled COVID brilliantly, and Australia is reaping the benefits of that now.”

Politics is untrodden territory for Fisher, often prodded to share her opinions given her husband’s strong stance. “I’ve always been outspoken

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT Isla Fisher

(with Martin Henderson) played schoolgirl Shannon Reed on Home and Away in the ’90s; with Dan Stevens in Blithe Spirit; supporting her husband at the 2021 Oscars.

personally, but I’ve steered away from politics publicly. I don’t know that anyone wants to hear me talk about it,” she says. That said, certain events in 2020 left her with no choice but to use her platform and her voice, and she regularly took to Instagram to campaign for democracy.

“It’s something that we all need to be as proactive as possible about right now,” she says emphatically.

“It was clearly the spread of online conspiracy theories that led to the storming of Capitol Hill.

And people like Mark Zuckerberg are making money off lies that cost lives, and these social media companies should be creating jobs that save lives.

No account on social media should incite violence, or spread hate or false information. I think these companies can afford to hire moderators to prevent misinformation being spread, and to save lives.”

The usually sunny star admits that the issue gets her fired up, but that she tempers her fury by striving to live life with her glass half full. “I’m always surprised that I’m employed, married and have my family – everything else feels like a bonus,” says Fisher. “Now, I’m optimistic about the future. That the vaccine will mean I can see my parents [overseas] and that we can all hug each other again. Until then, I just want to concentrate on keeping positive.”

For her, that means soaking up time with her family (her “number-one priority”), watching hilarious women-led comedy (“You have to see Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar with Kristen Wiig – it’s the funniest movie, you won’t regret it!”) and, whenever the moment calls, kicking off her shoes and tapping into her inner clown.

Blithe Spirit is screening on Amazon Prime now.

marieclaire.com.au | 81

C U LT U R E MOM

T

Montaigne

OF TH

EN

L

EDITED BY COURTNEY THOMPSON

E

GIR

YO U R F I X O F F I L M , M U S I C , A R T & B O O K S

Meet the effervescent pop artist and Australia’s representative at Eurovision 2021 In 2014, Jess Cerro, aka Montaigne, was in her family’s kitchen in the Sydney suburb of Kellyville when she got the first taste of her future. “We were watching Eurovision on our small television that hung in the corner,” she remembers.

“I have this distinct memory of seeing Conchita Wurst perform and being like, ‘Wow.’ I just loved it”.

Seven years later, Montaigne’s performance as Australia’s Eurovision contestant will be broadcast to millions of homes all over the globe. “It’s a once-ina-lifetime opportunity,” she says of taking part in the competition, where ABBA and Celine Dion performed in their early days.

The contest, held in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, seems almost tailor-made for this pop artist, who burst onto the Australian music scene in 2012 with the moniker of a 16th-century philosopher, eccentric style and a voice that is almost operatic in its expansive capabilities. “I had this instinct where I was like, ‘I’m perfect for Eurovision; I’m kinda quirky, my music is pop, but it’s slightly left of centre, I make interesting choices, and I’m drawn to the melodrama and costuming.’”

Post-Eurovision, Montaigne plans to release new music that isn’t so close to the chest, experimenting with genres such as hyper-pop and electronic, as well as producing her own tracks and liberating herself from expectations. “I used to be quite hung up on whatever felt the most intellectual or sophisticated or whatever.

I really wanted to come across as a person who had interesting taste, and now I’m just like, ‘I can like whatever I want and I don’t care.’”

WATC H I T Montaigne will perform in the Eurovision semifinal broadcast live on SBS on May 19.

C ULT U RE

19 9 1

Thelma & Louise

c

Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis play best friends who start out on a fishing trip only to end up on the run from police. Plus: topless Brad Pitt.

What’s not to love?

19 9 6

Set It Off

e . h r i . f h . y c ou ca n t a

Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vivica A Fox and Kimberly Elise star in this iconic heist film about four friends who decide to solve their financial problems by robbing banks all over Los Angeles.

On June 3, SBS will premiere The Unusual Suspects, a thrilling four-part crime caper that follows a group of women from vastly different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds who become entangled in a scandalous jewellery sting. To celebrate, we look back at the most daring heist heroines

2 0 12

Springbreakers CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT Miranda Otto, Heather

Mitchell, Michelle Vergara Moore and Aina Dumlao in The Unusual Suspects.

The film that left the squeaky-clean Disney-girl reputations of Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens in tatters. Four friends have the most debauched spring break after holding up a restaurant to afford it.

2 018

Widows When their criminal husbands are killed in a police shoot-out, four women are brought together by the debts they were left with. With a killer cast (Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Erivo) and a screenplay by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen (who also directed), it’s an instant classic.

marieclaire.com.au | 83

the depths of

DELPY My Zoe is new terrain for Julie Delpy. The writer, director and actor chats to Courtney Thompson about fierce mothers, defying expectations and the future of filmmaking

“A LOT OF THINGS HAVE HAPPENED TO ME THAT ARE VERY, VERY DARK” – Julie Delpy

pleasing their expectation.” She also says My Zoe is her most personal film.

“It speaks to me about being a mother,” Delpy explains, noting that she’s cognisant of the potential for it to be misunderstood. “My life has been a constant drama; a lot of things have happened

Julie Delpy with Sophia Ally in My Zoe.

to me that are very, very dark. So it’s always a question of how to translate it in a way that’s not melodramatic or too self-indulgent.”

My Zoe took more than four years to make, after a crucial financier pulled out. Delpy believes the subject matter made “people very scared”. “It’s about a woman who defies fate and what’s

acceptable of a woman,” she says. “She is fighting the fate of accepting the death and accepting what is expected of a woman, which is grieve and shut up, basically. So she does the opposite. It will upset some people because of that.

Everyone wants to see a woman grieve, they don’t want to see a woman fight and go against fate.”

The filmmaker is an ardent advocate for gender parity, and has spoken about having to fight to be paid the same as her Before co-star, Ethan Hawke. It hasn’t been easy. “I think they pick their women,” she says. “I’m too outspoken in a way. There’s a price to pay when you’re that outspoken.”

This year, two women are nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards (Chloé Zhao for Nomadland and Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman), but Delpy remains a sceptic. “The question is, how many films were directed by women this year? Sometimes the Academy, they want to do right, but they don’t necessarily represent the reality of the business. It’s better to do it than not, but there’s still some stuff that’s not equal opportunity. We’re not there yet.”

My Zoe is in cinemas June 17.

NICK WILSON; GETTY IMAGES.

W

hen Julie Delpy was nine, she wrote a story about motherhood. “I was obviously far from being a mother, but I’ve always been obsessed with parenting and children,” she says.

Forty-two years after penning that piece, Delpy has written, directed and stars in My Zoe, a sci-fi thriller film that asks how far you would go to save your children, and then stretches the answer to the nth degree.

Delpy plays Isabelle, a geneticist who is going through a thorny divorce with custody of her daughter a central tension. Then she’s left unmoored when (spoiler alert!) tragedy strikes and her daughter dies. In the wake of the devastating loss, Isabelle pursues a radical solution: cloning her late daughter. “For me, it was important to explore the subject of motherhood, of separation, what it means to be a parent and the anxiety that comes with it,” Delpy says.

The film is new ground for the French-American filmmaker, who has built a career starring in and co-writing romance films such as Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy and light romantic-dramadies such as 2 Days in Paris. She’s well aware My Zoe isn’t what people anticipate. “I understand [comedy] is what people expect of me,” she says. Sometimes I go too far in dis-

C ULT U RE

P I C K YO U R FLICK

POP-CULTURE DELIGHT

Cruella This is the origin story of the OG girl boss and villainous hater of dalmatians: Cruella de Vil. Starring Emma Stone as the eponymous character, it’s sure to be delicious and unmissable. Out May 27.

BOOK CLUB

Not sure what to book at the box office? We’ve selected the best films on offer to suit any mood

COMPELLING FOREIGN

The Perfect Candidate A Saudi doctor (Mila Al Zahrani) is exasperated by needing a man’s permission to travel, so she launches a political campaign to run for office. Out now.

Enjoy these books from local writers – proof that the future of Australian literature is brighter than ever DROPBE AR

BY EVELYN ARALUEN (UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS, $24.99)

DARING THRILLER

Fa t a l e A married man (Michael Early) sees his life disintegrate after he hooks up with a police detective (Hilary Swank), who’s determined to implicate him in her latest investigation. Out now.

BLOCKBUSTER SUSPENSE

A Quiet Place Part II In this much-anticipated sequel, the Abbott family must now take on the outside world, and discover there’s more to fear than the creatures that hunt by sound. Out May 27.

This is a debut from one of Australia’s most gifted writers. In her collection of poems and essays, Araluen dissects settlercolonial tropes and national iconography with surgical precision, spinning tales with a wicked sense of dark humour. Think lines like: “Don’t say Reconciliation Action Play, say fuck the police.” Her enchanting prose and warm recollections of family make it essential reading.

THE INL AND SE A

BY MADELEINE WATTS (MURDOCH, $29.99)

The narrator of Watts’ debut novel is unnamed, but you probably

know her: just finished university and unsure of her future, not enjoying her job, drinking heavily and sleeping with all the wrong people. In considering the ongoing search for herself, she thinks of her great-greatgreat-great-grandfather, an explorer who spent his life searching for Australia’s mythical inland sea.

E ATING WITH MY MOUTH OPEN

BY SAM VAN ZWEDEN (NEWSOUTH, $29.99)

The relationship we have with food is fraught. In this nonfiction book, van Zweden puts our broken food system, insidious wellness culture and complicated body politics under the microscope to offer clarity on how we can recalibrate our notions of nourishment.

Interspersed with essays chronicling her own personal journey, it’s an enlightened memoir and insightful cultural commentary.

BL ACK AND BLUE

BY VERONICA GORRIE (SCRIBE, $32.99)

Veronica Gorrie is a proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, and for 10 years she was one of the rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In this memoir, she recounts the institutional racism and sexism she saw at play, and her battle against it in her dedication to provide equal and compassionate service for the people in her community. She also details the enduring impacts of racism and intergenerational trauma on her family and life with wisdom, warmth and wit.

marieclaire.com.au | 85

CA REER

STOP the BLAME GAME Creators of the podcast Playing Devil’s Avocado, Claire Isaac and Lisa Sinclair, say it’s time to be unapologetically fierce at work: start with dumping ‘sorry’ from your vocab

W

e constantly apologise for things. And when we say we, we mean one of us in particular … we shall call her Claire (because that’s her name). In fact, when she rings people on the phone she’s even been known to say, “Hello, sorry!” and when she needs to address something at work, or when she’s giving someone great news or when, you know, it’s raining, the first thing out of her mouth is quite often an apology. Walking down the street and bump into someone? Sorry! Calling someone at work to sort out a meeting?

Sorry! Need to finalise details? Sorry!

And while she’s really, well, irritating about it, you won’t be surprised to know that Claire is not alone. Women in general are mad for it. We just love saying sorry. Gah! We asked psychologist Noosha Anzab and corporate coach Amanda Blesing to talk to us about women and the phenomenon of over-apologising. “There are loads of reasons why both men and women practise the habit of over-apologising, however, women do tend to be more apologetic in their actions than men,” Anzab confirmed. Yep.

“From the time we were girls, women have been programmed this way. We were to be smart, but apologetic if we were too smart (or intimidating); we were to be driven and ambitious but then taught that being too successful is a Bad Thing; that we should apologise simply because we are considerate or understanding or empathetic, because that’s what a woman is meant to be. Ample research shows that girls are rewarded when they sit with other people’s feelings and are compassionate and understanding, whereas boys are rewarded when they are strong or dominating their space,” Anzab says.

Blesing agrees: “Over-apologising appears to be a stereotypically female thing to do. We’re surrounded by it: in queues when we need to move through,

in meetings when we want to interrupt or state a strong opinion, when we run late, in planes when your elbow bumps the person next to you on the teeny, tiny armrest. Maybe the airlines should simply make bigger armrests, or put a barrier so you can’t bump the person next to you. Or perhaps we learn to navigate the space together without saying sorry – like men do.”

“Look at it from a workplace point of view,” says Anzab. “If a woman had to pick her child up from childcare due to him/her being sick, she would apologise profusely for suddenly having to leave work, would feel guilty and would say something along the lines of, ‘My child is sick but I’m so sorry, I have to leave, I’ve got to pick him/her up,’ apologise again and dash off. Whereas

Can we change? “We can absolutely learn to stop saying it so much. It just takes patience, time, practise and being mindful,” Anzab says. “Being aware of when you say it, and why, is a great way to “REPLACING ‘SORRY’ unpack the cause of the WITH ‘THANK YOU’ faulty behaviour.

WILL DELIVER A FAR “One way to do it is BETTER RESULT NINE to put ‘sorry’ on trial,” Anzab suggests. “In any TIMES OUT OF 10” situation when you feel – Corporate coach propelled to apologise, Amanda Blesing and have often done so, after the fact you should put it on trial and see if there is enough evidence to have warranted the apology. If not, then make a mental note that it wasn’t warranted, and keep doing this each time. Eventually, you may feel you don’t need to apologise because, more than likely, the evidence will deem an apology not necessary.

“Another way to train your brain to stop saying sorry is to replace the word with thank you. Instead of saying, ‘Sorry for being late,’ try saying, ‘Thank you for waiting for me.’”

Oh yes, we know that one. A friend of ours, we shall call her Fiona (because that’s her name), told us she stopped saying, “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” and replaced it with, “Thank you for your patience while I had a look at this.” So inspiring.

And there are more, says Blesing.

“Gratitude, graciousness and ‘excuse me’ are fabulous tools. Say thank you in place of sorry and you can almost feel yourself reclaim your power.”

Yep, instead of saying, “Sorry, I’ve been going on a bit,” saying, “Thank you for listening to me!” is so much fun.

Instead of saying, “Sorry, I got that most men in the workplace would just wrong,” why not say “Thank you for say, ‘My child’s sick, I’ve got to dash off bringing that to my attention”? It is so. but I’ll complete X task tomorrow.’ It’s Damn. Freeing! more matter-of-fact and usually “Replacing sorry with thank you doesn’t come with a disclaimer.” will deliver you a far better result nine And to be honest it means women times out of 10,” Blesing says. “It means (and, yes, some men) can come across as you can save sorry for the times when an weak and certainly not genuine. “When apology is truly warranted and really you over-apologise, you undermine your matters. It will mean more if you do.” credibility, leaving people doubting Of course, if you have done somewhether you know what you’re talking thing terrible, apologise away. We’re about or that you’re any good at all. It not psychos, for crying out loud. Thank makes you appear weak, lacking in conyou for listening. Now that felt good. fidence and less leaderly,” Blesing says.

OK, so we (and “we” in this How Not to Live Your Best Life: Your instance means, well, Claire) just have Guide to Getting Older … But Not to stop. Right? Let’s do what we Necessarily Wiser! by Claire Isaac and deserve and dominate the space, too.

Lisa Sinclair (Are Media Books, Unapologetically. Unless we’ve run $19.99) is out now. over someone’s dog or something.

HOW I GOT HERE Renee Cosgrave, general manager of Stella Insurance, charts her path to the top My first job: McDonald’s when I was 13, managing that drivethru like a boss.

What I wanted to do: I always wanted to be a flight attendant so I could travel the world.

What I actually did: Well, the flight attendant thing didn’t take off (excuse the pun), so once I left school I undertook a traineeship at a chartered accountants firm. That was the beginning of a long career in financial services.

Best career move? Taking on my role with Stella Insurance.

Best career advice: If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.

Put yourself in challenging situations where you learn and develop.

Best lesson: To be comfortable showing vulnerability. You don’t need to know everything, but you need to be comfortable admitting it.

What I love most about my job: I love building a business that is challenging the status quo in what is typically perceived as a dull and boring industry. We’ve created a progressive and innovative insurance brand that puts women at the heart of every decision we make.

But ultimately, above our product offering, being part of an organisation that is passionate about driving actionable change for women makes me love what I do.

marieclaire.com.au | 87

CA REER

FROM LEFT

Tanya Plibersek, Bruna Papandrea, marie claire editor Nicky Briger, Jessica Mauboy, Grace Tame and Jess Hill. BELOW Ksenija Lukich (left) and Jesinta Franklin.

Icons who INSPIRE

The marie claire International Women’s Day breakfast was a morning that celebrated the women of the revolution Right now, Australian women are living through a profound moment of reckoning. And International Women’s Day couldn’t have come at a better time.

With Sydney Harbour as the backdrop, marie claire hosted its annual IWD breakfast to celebrate women.

Guests gathered at Quay restaurant to hear from esteemed speakers: singer Jessica Mauboy, sexual assault survivor advocate Grace Tame, politician Tanya Plibersek, producer Bruna Papandrea and journalist Jess Hill. marie claire editor Nicky Briger kicked things off, noting that “despite the tragedy and hardship endured across the globe last year, women rose up and said, ‘Challenge accepted.’ They took their places on the front line, they led with courage and compassion, they continued to use their voices to fight for change, and they made us laugh when we really, really needed it.”

It was an inspiring morning that emphasised the need to let women tell their stories on their terms, and realise their potential for change. Tame said it best when she told the crowd: “I like to think of [change] as a domino, and the catalytic potential of that domino, because there’s a whole set of dominoes waiting to be pushed over. Just be that one domino. Your tiny little contribution has enormous catalytic potential.”

Bruna Papandrea and Emma Cooper.

RIGHT Sarah Wilson, Grace Tame, Sarah Hanson-Young, Jackie Frank and Nicky Briger.

88 | marieclaire.com.au

$50 , 000 Winter Giv way Subscribe or treat a loved one to a marie claire subscription for your chance to win 1 of 20 Thermomix prize packs, valued at over $2,500 each

Prize pack LQFOXGHV

1x Thermomix TM6, 1x Anniversary book, 1x 20cm Spring Form Cake Pan, 2x Cake Tin Liners, 1x blade cover

6XEVFULEHU %HQH˴ WV ˚ 12 issues from $64.99* ˚ Save up to 40% ˚ FREE home delivery

magshop.com.au/winter10

136 116 DQG TXRWH 0ᗦᗥ:0&0

Competition opens on 01/06/2021 at 12:01am AEST and closes 31/07/2021 at 11:59pm AEST. Competition is open to all residents of Australia aged 18 years or over, who subscribe or renew their subscription to one or more magazine titles or purchase any product available on Magshop (magshop.com.au). Competition draw will take place 09/08/2021 at 11:00am AEST. Please see aremedia.com. au/privacy for our privacy policy. For full terms and conditions of entry, visit magshop.com.au/wintersale-tc. The Promoter is Are Media Pty Ltd (ABN 18 053 273 546). Authorised under permit numbers: NSW: TP/00018, SA: T21/476, ACT: TP 21/00515

WINTER IS COM I NG

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN MCDONALD.

All things sleek and chic define this month’s fashion offering, from timeless trenches to high-impact haute separates (pictured here). Then we round up the season’s best new coats and jackets for staying warm while looking cool.

Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello top, $1960, briefs, $2145, tights, $305, belt, $1170, shoes, $1220, and necklace, $1395, ysl.com.

marieclaire.com.au | 91

PLAY THE CLASSICS

Whether sleek or slouchy, uptown or downtown, a timeless trench works any time, any place. Just add chic accessories and layers of fine jewels PHOTOGRAPHED BY GEORGES ANTONI STYLED BY JANA POKORNY

OPPOSITE PAGE Abeny wears Burberry trench coat, $2990, au.burberry.com; Bvlgari B.zero1 Rock 18 -carat rose-gold earrings with black ceramic, $4070, bulgari.com. THIS PAGE Acne Studios trench coat, $1150, at harrolds.com. au; Bottega Veneta jacket, $3470, dress, $2490, shoes, $2120, and bag, $7470, bottegaveneta.com; Bvlgari B.zero1 18-carat rose-gold earrings with white ceramic, $4210, bulgari.com.

Scanlan Theodore trenchcoat, $2200, scanlantheodore.com; Christopher Esber dress, $950, christopheresber.com.au; Toni Maticevski pants, $1200, tonimaticevski.com. Bvlgari B.zero1 18-carat rose-gold earrings with white ceramic, $4210, and Serpenti 18-carat rose-gold thin necklace with demi-pavé diamonds, $60,400, bulgari.com.

Anjali wears Sportmax trench coat, $1815, world.sportmax.com; Jac+ Jack jumper, $749, jacandjack.com; Michael Lo Sordo pants, $1615, at net-a-porter. com; Sportmax shoes, $1300, world. sportmax.com; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold earrings with pavé diamonds, $7500, rings on model’s right hand, from top: Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with grey mother-of-pearl and pavé diamonds, $6650, and Serpenti 18-carat white-gold with diamonds, $10,900, rings on model’s left hand, from top: Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with full pavé diamonds, $11,650, Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with demi-pavé diamonds, $4450, and Serpenti 18-carat white-gold wedding band with full pavé diamonds, $8900, bulgari.com.

Lee Mathews trench coat, $1200, top, $499, skirt, $699, and collar, $159, leemathews.com. au; Bassike sandals, $560, bassike.com.au; stylist’s own socks.

Esse Studios trench coat, $1450, essestudios.com; Friends with Frank top, $229, friendswithfrank. com; Helen Kaminski hat, $275, helenkaminski.com. au; Bvlgari Serpenti 18-carat white-gold necklace with full pavé diamonds, $178,000, rings, from left: Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold with onyx and pavé diamonds, $7250, and Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold thin with onyx and pavé diamonds, $5400, bulgari.com.

Sian wears Alemais trench coat, $460, alemais. com; Bvlgari rings, from top: Serpenti Viper 18-carat rosegold two-coil with demipavé diamonds, $6900, Serpenti 18-carat rose-gold with pavé diamonds, $10,450, Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold band with demi-pavé diamonds, $4140, bracelets, from top: Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold with demipavé diamonds, $12,500, Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold two-coil with pavé diamonds, $69,300, and Serpenti Seduttori 18-carat rose-gold watch and bracelet with diamonds, $61,000, bulgari.com.

Arnsdorf trench, $970, arnsdorf.com.au; Camilla and Marc dress, POA, camillaandmarc.com; Sportmax shoes, $1300, world.sportmax.com; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold earrings, $3150, Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold necklace with demi-pavé diamonds, $29,300, and rings, from left: Serpenti 18-carat rosegold with pavé diamonds, $10,450, and Serpenti Viper 18-carat rose-gold band with demi-pavé diamonds, $4140, bulgari.com.

Zara trench coat, $219, zara.com; Albus Lumen top, $390, bikini set, $630, albuslumen.com; Zara shoes, $70, zara. com; Bvlgari Serpenti Diamond Blast mini shoulder bag, $2310, bangle bracelets, from top: B.zero1 18-carat rose-gold, $7500, and B.zero1 18-carat rosegold with white ceramic, $9850, bulgari.com.

Weekend Max Mara trench coat (worn inside out), $1500, world. weekendmaxmara.com; Sportmax shirt, $725, world.sportmax.com; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold earrings with pavé diamonds, $7500, rings, from left: Serpenti Viper 18-carat whitegold two-coil with pavé diamonds, $20,000, Serpenti 18-carat whitegold wedding band with full pavé diamonds, $8900, Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with grey mother-of-pearl and pavé diamonds (top), $6650, Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with demi-pavé diamonds, $4450, and Serpenti Viper 18-carat white-gold band with full pavé diamonds, $11,650, bulgari.com.

Makeup by Stoj/The Artist Group.

Hair by Daren Borthwick/The Artist Group. Models: Anjali Torvi and Abeny Nhial/both Priscillas; Sian Scale/Chadwick Models.

Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello jacket, $4645, blouse, $2150, briefs, $2145, and sunglasses, $505, (also worn on next page), ysl.com.

BACK TO THE FUTURE Shift your style into drive with sharp suiting, luxurious layers of black on black and killer heels, always

PHOTOGRAPHED BY DARREN MCDONALD STYLED BY NAOMI SMITH

Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello jacket, $4090, vest, $1830, pants, $1830, and belt, $785, ysl.com.

Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello top, $1960, briefs, $2145, tights, $305, belt, $1170, and shoes, $1220, ysl.com.

OPPOSITE PAGE Saint Laurent

by Anthony Vaccarello jacket, $4105, shorts, $925, tights, $305, shoes, $1220, and choker, $695, ysl.com. THIS PAGE Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello blouse, $2090, shorts, $925, tights, $305, belt, $1170, and sunglasses, $505.

Makeup by Linda Jefferyes/The Artist Group. Hair by Michele McQuillan/M.A.P. Model: Vanessa Axente/Priscillas.

Christian Dior dress, POA, bustier, $5900, belt, $1650, necklace, POA, and single earring, $770, 1300 406 581.

Let whispers of chiffon, delicate embroidery and the softest sunset hues transport you to another place and time. It’s fashion laced with fantasy PHOTOGRAPHED BY SOFIA FANEGO STYLED BY IVANA SPERNICELLI

Giorgio Armani dress, $4000, armani.com; MRZ bracelets, POA, from a selection at farfetch.com; Sinobi sandals, approx $465, sinobiofficial.com.

Brunello Cucinelli dress, $11,510, shop. brunellocucinelli.com.

Les Copains dress, POA, from a selection at lescopains.com.

Alberta Ferretti dress, approx $2796, and single earring, approx $195, albertaferretti.com.

Valentino dress, POA, (02) 8404 0888.

Pinko dress, $594, at farfetch.com.

Photography, collages and model Sofiz Fanego. Thanks to Cecilia Collantes and Philippe Bemberg.

Sportmax Efedra T-shirt, $425, world. sportmax.com.

COOL COLLABS

Moving IMAGES The aesthetic affinities of Sportmax and famed photographer Franco Fontana combine in the brand’s new Denim Culture project

FA S HI O N Sportmax Cirino jacket, $1390, and Faggio skirt, $610. INSET Sportmax Firmina shirt, $1025, and Giambo skirt, POA. world.sportmax.com.

COURTESY OF SPORTMAX; GETTY IMAGES. WORDS BY COURTNEY THOMPSON AND ALEXANDRA ENGLISH.

T

he Italian photographer Franco Fontana has been revolutionising landscape photography since the 1960s. His highly saturated abstract images, in which crops and fields appear as flat bands of colour devoid of any semblance of the realism usually expected from photography, were praised for being stylistically disruptive. Fontana was lauded for breaking away from traditional Italian photography practices and for breathing new life into colour photography, which was not fashionable at the time.

But his works are more than just pretty pictures.

There’s a quiet intimacy that runs through his images, which he says comes from a deep love of the craft. “All my photos are personal. I don’t see this as a job, but rather as a way to express my identity and style with love and thought,” he told marie claire.

Disruptive, personal and visually alluring. It’s the same approach Sportmax takes to its collection each season, with founder Achille Maramotti’s maxim that “In fashion one can even ‘impose’, but only the things that, albeit unconsciously, are already wanted.” In 2021, the peace and serenity that emanate from Fontana’s photographs are definitely already wanted.

And so, a dreamy collaboration was born.

Each season, the brand – Max Mara’s cool little sister – partners with a leading artist or creative on a capsule collection for its jeanswear-focused Denim Culture project, which is now in its fifth edition.

“I DON’T SEE THIS AS A JOB, BUT AS A WAY TO EXPRESS MY IDENTITY” – Franco Fontana

ABOVE Franco Fontana.

RIGHT Sportmax

Genesio pants, $1210, world.sportmax.com.

The result is a collection that doesn’t merely adorn the wearer in art, but makes them a moving installation of art-à-porter via voluminous trousers and form-fitting dresses. His photographs appear on nine pieces, including a flared midi-skirt, straight-leg jeans and a serenity-inducing micro-dress that features a photograph of the sea.

Fontana also shot the lookbook in urban landscapes that complement the scenes on the clothes.

He says the collaborative process was creatively satisfying. “It has stimulated me and inspired me because, for me, putting myself out there while remaining true to my style is always very challenging,” he explains. He admits it’s impossible to pick a favourite piece: “They are all in sync with my aesthetic.”

marieclaire.com.au | 119

101 ideas

Stomp around in comforting knits, relaxed silhouettes and outerwear with boyish charm

Friends with Frank dress, $319, friendswithfrank.com; Alias Mae boots, $399.95, aliasmae.com.au; Oroton bag, $599, oroton.com.

fastest route to

wa

rm

t

re a

s te

c

t oa

he is t

h

d

S H OP P I N G

A tr u

s t y do ub l e -b

1

2

3

1 H&M coat, $119, 1800 828 002; Zara shirt, $59.95,

zara.com; Arnsdorf top, $129, arnsdorf.com.au; Nobody Denim jeans, $239, nobodydenim.com; Zara shoes, $69.95, zara.com. 2 ASOS jumper, $36, asos. com; Venroy dress, $180, venroy.com.au. 3 Zara jacket, $109, zara.com; H&M T-shirt, $19.99, 1800 828 002; Worn Store top, $99, wornstore.com.au; Zara shoes, $189, zara.com; Oroton bag, $499, oroton.com.

1

2

Chunk y, over

siz

ed

kn it s

ad d

at t it u d e 3

1 Frame jacket, $459, at edwardsimports.com; H&M shirt, $14.99, 1800 828 002; Cotton On top, $24.99, cottonon. com; Hansen & Gretel leggings, $229, hansenandgretel. com. 2 SIR jumper, $395, sirthelabel.com; Cos pants, $175, cosstores.com; Country Road shoes, $179, countryroad. com.au. 3 Zara jacket, $169, zara.com; Uniqlo jumper, $49.90, uniqlo.com; Jag top, $90, jag.com.au; The Frankie Shop shorts, $135, thefrankieshop.com; Zara shoes, $89.95, and bag, $59.95, zara.com.

S H OP P I N G

The Frankie Shop trench coat, $550, thefrankieshop. com; Viktoria & Woods pants, $290, viktoriaandwoods. com.au; Zara shoes, $69.95, zara.com.

A faux-le

at h

er t

re n

ch is

a we

th e

o r-pr of, timeless and ma d

e f o rs

he marieclaire.com.au | 123

l te

r in

gb

ene

at h

124 | marieclaire.com.au

B r i gh

te n m o o d y w

i n te

rh

ue

s

i

s t hat s pa n t h e sea

so

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEDD COONEY/VIVIEN’S CREATIVE. STYLED BY MONICA RUSSELL. MAKEUP BY PETER BEARD/THE ARTIST GROUP. HAIR BY GAVIN ANESBURY/VIVIEN’S CREATIVE. MODEL: HOLLY MAGSON/CHADWICK MODELS.

Zara jacket, $109, zara.com; Frame jeans, $495, at edwardsimports. com; Zara shoes, $189, zara.com.

t wi

h hw

ean te j ns

S H OP P I N G 1

2

A

, s of t

n e ut r a l c o - o r

ds

et

w

ith

lea th e

r acce s sor ie s n a

il s

co u

-to

-st

re e

t s t yl e 1 The Frankie Shop blazer, $275, thefrankieshop.com; Witchery top, $49.95, witchery.com.au; Cue pants, $235, cue.com; Charles & Keith shoes, $83, charleskeith.com; Cos bag, $335, cosstores.com; Najo earrings, $159, najo.com.au.

2 Zara coat, $219, zara.com; Camilla and Marc top, $350, and pants, $450, camillaandmarc.com; Charles & Keith shoes, $79, charleskeith.com; Oroton bag, $349, oroton. com. 3 Les Coyotes de Paris jumper, $517, and jeans, $365, lescoyotesdeparis.com; Najo earrings, $109, najo.com.au.

ch

3

Elka Collective, $349, elkacollective.com.

Vince, $2870, at modaoperandi.com.

ASOS Design, $140, asos.com.

GO HELL F O R L E AT H E R A leather coat (real or faux) can last a lifetime and even look better with age. Worn over jeans and sneakers or sexy evening wear, the options are endless.

Zara, $139, zara.com.

Cue, $985, cue.com.

NEW-SEASON EDIT

COAT TALES

Winter blues? We don’t know her. With an abundance of options (long, short, coloured, textured, belted), your new forever coat will make stepping into the cooler months pure joy Mother Denim, $615, at edwardsimports. com.

Staple The Label, $199, staplethelabel.com.

H Brand, 325, hbrand.com.au.

WA R M & FUZ ZY From smooth as whippedcream to chunky-teddy, a textured coat is the perfect winter outer layer.

Mink Pink, $189.95, minkpink.com.

Elka Collective, $299, elkacollective.com.

S H OP P I N G

ASOS Design, $80, asos.com.

The Frankie Shop, approx $364.78, eu.thefrankieshop.com.

Iris & Ink, $391, at theoutnet.com.

A BL A ZER GLORY

Zara, $109, zara.com.

Magali Pascal, $495, magalipascal.com.au.

Forever New, $89.99, forevernew. com.au.

Embrace a classic blazer in a sorbet hue. Go for slightly loose tailoring and pair with matching trousers for the ultimate in pastel-chic.

Witchery, $199.95, witchery. com.au.

Elka Collective, $499, elkacollective.com.

Country Road, $349, countryroad.com.au.

CHECK, PLEASE

H&M, $79.99, hm.com.

Hansen & Gretel, $449, hansenandgretel.com.

Laid-back and perfect for layering, an oversized checked cocoon coat will have you feeling snug as a bug all winter long.

Witchery, $399.95, witchery. com.au.

marieclaire.com.au | 127

Khaite, $879, at theoutnet.com.

ASOS Design, $50, asos.com.

Elka collective, $299, elkacollective.com.

IT’S A CINCH

Elka Collective, $289, elkacollective.com.

Marimekko, $465, marimekko.com.

A shorter coat is perfect for showing off the lower half of your outfit. Play with silhouettes by tying it up at the waist or leaving it open.

Add accessories and voila!

Second Female, $409, (03) 9420 1500.

Country Road, $499, countryroad.com.au.

H Brand, $430, hbrand.com.au.

H&M, $139, hm.com.

T E D DY LOV E

ASOS Design, $160, asos.com.

A teddy coat is the sartorial equivalent of a warm hug.

Dial down the cutesy factor with chunky shoes, a wide belt and a statement handbag.

Mes Demoiselles, $719, (03) 9420 1500.

S H OP P I N G

Magali Pascal, $495, magalipascal.com.au.

Forever New, $159.99, forevernew.com.au.

IN THE TRENCHES Like the perfect white tee, a trench coat is the stuff of fashion legend. Throw one over relaxed tailoring (or trackies) for instant sophistication.

Bassike, $1195, bassike.com.

Saba, $449, saba.com.au.

Sportscraft, $399.99, sportscraft. com.au.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI; GETTY IMAGES. COMPILED BY ELLA BLINCO JURY. WORDS BY ALEXANDRA ENGLISH.

Elka Collective, $399, elkacollective.com.

Sportscraft, $269.99, sportscraft. com.au.

Friend of Audrey, $329.95, friendofaudrey.com.au.

Elka Collective, $199, elkacollective.com Uniqlo, $129.90, uniqlo.com.

PUFF PIECE New fabrics and colourways mean the next-gen puffer jackets don’t look out of place even if your version of “outdoorsy” is al fresco dining.

Toast Society, $279, toastsociety.com.

marieclaire.com.au | 129

ADV E RTI SI N G F EAT U R E

BUILDING SAFE FUTURES program, supporting women’s independence through training, education and employment support.

As with all WAGEC programs, women supporting women is the core principle of ACCESS. Michelly De Almeida is a volunteer mentor who recently supported a WAGEC OGPVGG VQ YQTM VQYCTFU ƂPCPEKCN independence.

“Sometimes all we need is one person who believes in us, who trusts us, so we can keep going,” she explains.

Throughout six months of mentoring, Michelly and her mentee worked to develop goals, tailor resumes and explore job opportunities. All the while her mentee, a single mother in WAGEC’s crisis accommodation, was studying full-time at university. Michelly says she was regularly blown away by her mentee’s resilience and dedication to her future and her family. “I had to constantly stop while we were talking over the phone to just say, “Girl, you are amazing.” As someone who had migrated to Australia, studied full-time and paved her way one step at a time, Michelly used her own experience to offer hope.

Small individual acts and support play a big role in supporting women to build a safe future for themselves and their families. WAGEC’s ACCESS program relies entirely on donations.

;QW ECP OCMG VJKU GPF QH ƂPCPEKCN year the start of another woman’s ƂPCPEKCN KPFGRGPFGPEG D[ donating today.

E S S EN T IA L AC T I O NS Reduce the gendered drivers of violence

CHALLENGE Condoning of violence against women PROMOTE Women’s independence and decision making CHALLENGE Gender stereotypes and roles STRENGTHEN Positive, equal and respectful relationships

LEARN MORE AT STELLAINSURANCE.COM.AU OR DONATE TODAY TO WAGEC.ORG.AU/DONATE

*Policy terms, conditions and exclusions apply. Any advice provided is general advice and does not take your personal circumstances into consideration. Please read the Stella Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) available at stellainsurance.com.au, for the terms, conditions and exclusions before purchasing this insurance. Stella Underwriting (ABN 72 633 811 319) is an Authorised Representative (AR 001282046) of Allstate Insurance Pty Ltd (AFSL 239010), which is acting under an agreement on behalf of the product issuer, QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited (AFSL 239545).

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1800RESPECT.

New to the Australian market, 5VGNNC +PUWTCPEG KU C HGOCNG ƂTUV purpose-driven business created by women, for women. Stella is building a community to help educate, support and empower women to balance the gender bias in matters such as insurance – and life at large.

Starting with car insurance, Stella designs products and customer experiences that prioritise women.

It strives to partner with like-minded people and organisations to drive practical and progressive change.

Stella has recently partnered with Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre (WAGEC), which supports women and children in crisis to build safe futures. Together, they want to end gender-based violence in a generation.

At WAGEC, their 44 years of experience combined with research evidence from Our Watch, Australia’s national prevention organisation has KFGPVKƂGF VJCV CEEGUU VQ GEQPQOKE UCHGV[ CPF ƂPCPEKCN KPFGRGPFGPEG are crucial to breaking the cycle of violence. Our Watch’s Change the Story framework for primary prevention of violence against women and their children shows that promoting women’s independence, economic security and decisionmaking in public life and relationships is essential to driving change. This is why WAGEC delivers the ACCESS

MICHELLY DE ALMEIDA

Photography by Ana Suntay-Tañedo

MAKE YOUR END OF FINANCIAL YEAR THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER WOMAN’S FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE.

B E AU T Y PRECIOUS TOOLS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI; WORDS BY SALLY HUNWICK.

In a world ruled by tech, sometimes it’s nice to tap into ancient wisdom. From invigorating rose quartz to nurturing jade and healing amethyst, these facial tools are built to put the skin (and mind) back into balance. With up and outward movements, use them to lather up your cleanser or to work in serums and creams for an instant boost to blood flow and a satisfying lifting effect.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: CRYSTAL AGE Quartz Crystal Massage Wand, $36; KORA ORGANICS Rose Quartz Heart Facial Sculptor, $76; JADE ROLLER BEAUTY Jade Roller Amethyst, $118; WHITE LOTUS Jade Gua Sha Tool, $65; SALT BY HENDRIX Magic Mushroom Soother Set, $49.95; DOLLAR HIPPY CLUB Gua Sha, $33; CAW Rose Quartz Gua Sha, $29.95; HUNTER LAB Aura Facial Sculpting Tool, $298.

marieclaire.com.au | 131

Now in its ninth year, the Prix de marie claire Fragrance Awards recognises the best scents of the year, voted for by marie claire beauty editors across the globe

B E S T I N N O VAT I O N

LOUIS VUITTON CALIFORNIA DREAM Louis Vuitton California Dream EDP, 100ml, $440.

The California sunset is captured like a genie in a bottle with this scent by Louis Vuitton’s in-house perfumer, Jacques Cavallier Belletrud. He pulls it off with fruity notes of mandarin and pear, blended with sophisticated floral notes and enveloped in the soft warmth of musks, ambrette and vanilla-tinged benzoin. It’s the olfactory equivalent of those precious few moments before night descends. The bottle captures the mood perfectly, too, thanks to LA-based artist Alex Israel, who tinted the glass from orange to blue, perfectly reflecting that laid-back Cali vibe.

BE AU T Y

RAL

IA

E NN R

AU ST

IN

W

I

BEST FR AGR ANCE

CHANEL GABRIELLE ESSENCE Chanel Gabrielle Essence, 100ml, $254.

Inspired by the woman who followed her instincts to create one of the most beloved brands on the planet, this floral fragrance positively glows with a strong femininity. Designed to be applied generously, this new incarnation of the original melds together jasmine, ylang-ylang, orange blossom, and the creamy Grasse tuberose to create a nectar-like fragrance that will appeal to the woman who knows her own mind.

BEST FR AGR ANCE

LIL FLEUR BY BY REDO Byredo Lil Fleur EDP, 100ml, $337.

This nostalgic fragrance was a clear category winner.

Byredo creative director and founder Ben Gorham and perfumer Jérôme Épinette were inspired by the spirit of youth and the ups and downs that go with it, creating a fragrance that captures the full spectrum of emotions. From joyful notes of mandarin and blackcurrant to the calming scent of damascena rose, then moodier notes of wood, amber and vanilla, this scent truly is a cult favourite in the making.

marieclaire.com.au | 133

BEST BOT TLE

L OU B I WO R LD S E R I E S

BY CHRISTIA N LOUBOUTIN Christian Louboutin Loubiworld Loubicroc EDP (not yet available in Australia).

Christian Louboutin’s collection of seven Loubiworld fragrances explore the designer’s dreams and memories. With the help of illustrator Hélène Tran, he has created a range of unisex scents housed in vibrant red laqurered glass, topped with silver caps. There is a perfect fit for everyone: the oriental fragrance Loubicroc, with its crocodile-wrapped bottle, blends sensual myrrh, cypriol and sandalwood; the floral woody Loubikiss mixes tuberose, jasmine and musk.

Or there’s the fruity floral Loubidoo, which mingles strawberries, rose and cedar. Whatever your pairing, these scents are melting as many hearts as Louboutin’s shoes do.

B E ST M EN ’S FR AGR ANCE

MAISON FR ANCIS KURKDJIAN L’ H O M M E À LA ROSE Maison Francis Kurkdjian L’Homme À la Rose EDP, 70ml, $315.

Who says roses are for women only? This modern scent by Francis Kurkdjian celebrates the essence of centifolia rose by adding notes of grapefruit and amber wood. The result is a fragrance that is fresh, modern and masculine all at once. Get it for your man (then steal it for yourself).

134 | marieclaire.com.au

BE AU T Y

RAL

IA

E NN R

AU ST

IN

W

I

B E S T I N N O VAT I O N

GUCCI BLOOM A MBROSIA DI FIORI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI. WORDS BY SALLY HUNWICK.

Gucci Bloom Ambrosia di Fiori EDP, 100ml, $225.

For this iteration of Gucci Bloom, creative director Alessandro Michele and Spanish master perfumer Alberto Morillas took inspiration from the ancient world.

Ambrosia was the sustenance of the Greek gods, which they believed would make them immortal. This mystical scent blends the original Gucci Bloom trio (jasmine bud extract, tuberose and rangoon creeper) with the rare velvety orris, which the ancient Greeks and Romans used as an essential oil, and damascena rose, harvested in the early morning to retain the flower’s power. If you want a dose of ancient wisdom with your scent, this one is right on brief.

T

DIR

EC

HE

TOR

MANE MAINTENANCE Y

To get the most out of your salon session, add these colour-enhancing, nourishing and strengthening treatments to bolster your hair care regimen

BE AU T Y

The H A IR PROTECTOR T H E S E R V I C E : K18 Peptide

Treatment, from $50.

T H E D E T A I L S : Designed to complement hair colour services, the newly launched K18 Peptide treatment repairs heat, colour and chemical-induced damage for soft and strong hair in four minutes flat.

There’s also an at-home mask to maximise and extend results.

T h e TA I L O R E D T R E AT M E N T T H E S E R V I C E : Redken

Shot Phase Treatment, $25.

T H E D E T A I L S : Redken’s fiveminute bond-building treatment is custom formulated to repair damage while treating specific hair goals, such as restoring, softening or locking colour into hair.

GET IT HERE:

Cream Melbourne, Fitzroy, Vic; creme.melbourne. Redken salons nationwide, salons.redken.com.au.

GET IT HERE:

Jonny + June Hair, Paddington, NSW, jonnyjunehair.com; and K18 salons nationwide, k18hair.com.au.

The COLOUR B OOST T H E S E R V I C E : Christophe Robin

Shade Variation Treatment, from $69.

T H E D E T A I L S : Christophe Robin’s Shade Variation is blended with a haircare mask, then painted onto freshly washed hair and left to steam, leaving your colour rich, glossy and easier to style.

GET IT HERE:

Que Colour, Darlinghurst, NSW; quecolour.com. Christophe Robin treatments also available at Edwards & Co nationwide, edwardsandco.com.au.

The INSIDE- OUT R E PA I R E R

STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATASCHA LINDEMANN/TRUNK ARCHIVE/SNAPPER IMAGES GUTTER SOFIA MODEL: CREDITTSAKIRIDOU / @MATIAMUBYSOFIA; AGENCY: MF MGMT. WORDS BY ALEX DUFFY.

T H E S E R V I C E : Aveda

Botanical Repair Professional Treatment, $50-$87.

T H E D E T A I L S : This in-salon treatment kicks off with a specialised camera that analyses scalp health and hair density. Next, the pro-grade treatment is massaged into hair for 10 minutes to repair all three layers of the follicle, giving brittle and fragile hair renewed strength, smoothness and shine.

GET IT HERE:

Element Aveda, Subiaco, WA, and Paddington, NSW; elementaveda.com.au.

Aveda salons nationwide, aveda.com.au.

The TEXTUR EBUILDER

The TIME REVERSER T H E S E R V I C E : Kevin

T H E S E R V I C E : Goldwell

Nuwave Treatment, from $180.

Murphy Treat.Me, $35.

T H E D E T A I L S : Like a facial for hair and the scalp, Treat.Me is a strengthening treatment spiked with a concentrate. Spritzed and brushed through damp hair and left to steam, this made-to-order treatment moisturises, thickens and adds shine to neglected hair.

is a bespoke treatment that can add volume to fine hair or create natural-looking waves for effortless everyday styling (think of it as a fresh take on the ’80s perm). With a new-age hair-protecting perming solution, this is texture without compromising on hair health.

GET IT HERE:

GET IT HERE:

Bach Hair, Paddington, Qld, bachhair.com. au. Kevin.Murphy salons nationwide, kevinmurphy.com.au.

DO THIS:

Book in for a hair appointment every six to eight weeks to maintain your hair goals

T H E D E T A I L S : Goldwell’s Nuwave

Wild Life Hair, Surry Hills and Milsons Point, NSW; wildlifehair.com. Goldwell salons nationwide,goldwell.com.

The CUR L R EV I V ER T H E S E R V I C E : Rumbie & Co Strength Treatment, $70.

T H E D E T A I L S : This 30-minute

treatment is a do-over for dry, damaged and limp curls. It repairs and strengthens textured hair for a defined, bouncing curl pattern and glossy shine.

G E T I T H E R E : Rumbie & Co, Chippendale, NSW; rumbie.co.

T R E AT YO U R S E LF Good hair days don’t have to be hard work – Hask’s at-home mask deeply nourishes, Eleven’s keeps dry strands shining, and K18’s repairs damage

The QUICK FIX T H E S E R V I C E : Kérastase

Fusio-Dose Treatment, from $30.

T H E D E T A I L S : Mix and match Kérastase’s Fusio-Dose leave-in treatment into 20 combinations for full and shimmering hair, without extra time at the salon basin.

GET IT HERE:

Zink Hair, Adelaide, SA; zinkhair.com.au.

Kérastase salons nationwide, kerastase.com.au.

FROM FAR LEFT: ELEVEN AUSTRALIA

Miracle Hair Mask, $27.95; HASK Argan Oil Intense Deep Conditioner, $4.99; K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask, $94.50.

marieclaire.com.au | 137

T H E VA N I T Y D I A R I E S Want to know what celebrities really use on their skin? We ask eight beauty A-listers to open up their bathroom cupboards and show us what’s inside WORDS BY SALLY HUNWICK PHOTOGRAPHED BY BENITO MARTIN STYLED BY SARAH HUGHES

GHD Curve Soft Curl Tong, $250; OLAY Regenerist Whip Face

THE INFLUENCER

ELLE FERGUSON This self-proclaimed beauty junkie keeps her routine simple and organised.

“My beauty cupboard is extremely well organised and ready for a shelfie; I am the true definition of a beauty junkie.

You can always find in my cupboard Elle Effect The Tan self-tanner, Olay Regenerist Whip, Ghd Soft Curl tong, Tresemmé Instant Refresh Volumising Dry Shampoo [$8.95] and Nars lip pencil in Dolce Vita.

One surprising beauty product that is in my beauty cupboard is incense. I love to have a shower and burn some, so I always keep it in close proximity.

I have a beauty routine that I’ve stuck to for years. I actually have written on the inside of my beauty cupboard what I need to do and when; it makes me feel accountable. I cleanse with oilbased cleanser as it melts the makeup away. Then splash my face with cold water. Then I apply my Olay Vitamin C Super Serum, followed by my Olay Regenerist Whip as it moisturises and also acts as a primer before makeup.

Ever since COVID I’ve introduced the Olay Regenerist Retinol24 Serum [$60] into my routine, which has been

amazing at fading any dark spots I have on my skin. I do this twice a week.

I also love the Elle Effect The Wash as an all-over body cleanser, and I do a good tan night on a Thursday – an absolute treat. Elle Effect all the way! Before bed I always apply Tatcha lip mask.

I love fragrances. I’ve currently fallen in love with Chanel Nº5. I just love everything it stands for, so when I wear it I feel like it gives me special powers. I love layering fragrance too, so I’ve normally got a mix which includes [my fiancé] Joel’s Le Labo Noir.”

GREG NATALE CERAMIC HELLENICA CERAMIC TRAY WHITE, GREGNATALE.COM.

Moisturiser, $48.99, and Luminous Niacinamide + Vitamin C Super Serum, $59.99; NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil, $41; TATCHA The Kissu Lip Mask, $43; CHANEL N°5 EDP, 100ml, $249; ELLE EFFECT The Wash, $29.95, and The Self Tanning Mousse, $44.95; LE LABO Thé Noir 29, EDP, 100ml, $426.

BE AU T Y

GREG NATALE MARBLE CARTER TRAY BIANCO SMALL, GREGNATALE.COM.

KORA ORGANICS Rose Quartz Luminizer, $36, Noni Glow Face Oil, $115, Milky Mushroom Gentle Cleansing Oil, $54, Turmeric Brightening & Exfoliating Mask, $62, and Noni Glow Skinfood with Prebiotics Dietary Supplement Powder, $80 for 30 sachets; Clear Quartz Raw Crystal, $42; KONMARIE Tuning fork.

THE MOGUL

MIR A NDA K ER R The entrepreneur uses healing crystals and a musical note in her holistic beauty routine.

“I love to make beauty a nurturing experience for the mind, body and skin, so I incorporate aromatherapy, crystals and tools into my routine to make it a really uplifting experience.

Marie Kondo gave me a C note [tuning fork] which is exactly 4096 hertz.

She uses it to reset the energy in the room by dinging it on a white quartz crystal. The vibration is so amazing; it really clears the energy and resets my mind. I keep one by my bed.

I start my morning with a Noni Glow in water and dry body brushing to get the

circulation going. There is also a natural exfoliating process during the night, so in the morning I like to remove those dead skin cells and oils with Kora oil cleanser.

I am religious about cleansing; it’s really important to prep the skin so your skincare penetrates and works better.

I use the Turmeric exfoliator because it’s an uplifting and sensorial experience.

For day, I also spray on the Kora Citrus Mist [$42] followed by the Kora Vitamin C Serum [$86], which has Kakadu plum, such a powerhouse ingredient. I use the Noni Eye oil [$52],

then apply my moisturiser with a gua sha to really get my lymphatic system going.

Then I use sunscreen, concealer, a bit of blush and lip tint for a hint of colour.

I always spray a lavender spray on my pillow before bed and apply the Noni Glow Sleeping mask [$62].

I believe in the power of words.

Positive affirmations are really important to me. I think it is important to forgive ourselves on a daily basis. Forgiving ourselves and other people who have hurt us is a great way to unlock positivity in our own lives.”

marieclaire.com.au | 139

BE AU TY

THE ENTREPRENEUR:

TR I N N Y WO ODA LL The stylist turned beauty guru has a routine based on getting maximum bang for her beauty buck.

“In my bathroom cupboard I’ve got cleansers, exfoliators, mists, serums, moisturisers, SPFs, acids, AHAs, PHAs, retinols, peels ...

And I have every tool under the sun, anything you could imagine: LED masks, microcurrent tools, etc.

I do my routine very quickly. I can just get up and get ready. I’ll wake up, massage in a balm cleanser (I love Eve Lom, she did my facials for 10 years) and then I’ll do an AHA serum, a moisturiser, then I apply [Trinny London] BFF Eye first, so I take the benefits of the peptides, vitamin C and hyaluronic acid, then follow with my BFF De-Stress

Serum, which I created because the biggest issue on our skin is stress.

At night I layer a peptide serum over retinol. I don’t like putting oils or heavy moisturisers on my skin; I think they should be banned from every woman’s routine. The viscosity of the products I put on at night can’t be too heavy so things can go deep to work.

For makeup, sheer shimmer is my go-to. If I was running around and had to look nice on camera, I would just put Sheer Shimmer in Maiko on my lip for an instant fix and then my cheeks for glow and a bit of colour so I look alive.

If I have more time, I’ll apply Lip2Cheek

PEPPY CO LED Light Therapy Mask, $179; TRINNY LONDON BFF Serum Eye Concealer, $48, BFF Serum

Tinted De-Stress, $75, Sheer Shimmer Lip to Cheek, $45, Eye2Eye Eye Shade, $34, Cheekbones Contour, $45, Flush Blush Blusher, $36, Miracle Blur Lip and Line Filler, $48, and Golden Glow Bronzer, $45; EVE LOM Cleanser, $169; SAMUEL GRAVAN Woody Fig EDP, 50ml, $140; NŪFACE Trinity Facial Device, $494; OFFICINE UNIVERSELLE BULY The Aspirant Rake Comb, $71; LADY JAYNE Bobby Pins, $3.29 for 25.

140 | marieclaire.com.au

in Veebee, Sheer Shimmer in Dido, Golden Glow Bronzer in Gaia, and then Eye2Eye in Wisdom.

I discovered my favourite fragrance at Bondi Wash in Sydney two years ago.

Perfumer Samuel Gravan did this fragrance called Woody Fig. I became obsessed and then I emailed him directly a few weeks later and he said, “OK, I’m making some in a batch.”

My hair is frizzy and unmanageable so I use Iles Formula Haute Performance Finishing Serum [$78.99], which is for quite curly hair so I use very little of it– just enough to clean up the textured, frizzy ends.”

THE NEWSREADER

G E O RG I A L OV E

ALSO SHOWN: ELEVEN AUSTRALIA WOODEN WIDE TOOTH COMB; CHRISTOPHE ROBIN TRAVEL HAIRBRUSH.

Juggling multiple products at any one time is a trick she has down pat.

“I adore beauty products, so I’m always trying something new while still rotating my favourites. My routine isn’t the same every night: I use different products every few nights, so I have lots of half-full things always on the go!

Twice a week I’ll use a facial oil before bed for that extra boost overnight and I’ll change up the serums I use – I have three on rotation at any given time. My favourite everyday serum is SkinCeuticals Hydrating B5 Gel. I never leave home without SPF 50+. There’s no point doing all the other good things for your skin if you get sun damage. My favourite is La Roche-Posay Anthelios. Palmer’s Facial Cleansing Oil removes all makeup with 1–2 pumps.

For makeup, I’m currently obsessed with It Cosmetics Your Skin But Better CC+ Cream [$63]. And my absolute favourite mascara is Maybelline The Falsies Lash Lift [$24.95]. I also love a good compact powder to dab away shine – my go-to is MAC Studio Fix Powder and I need a good, everyday lipstick too: Nars in Dolce Vita and MAC Velvet Teddy are my favourites. With fragrance, I’m a floral gal! I flick between Chloé Roses and Gucci Bloom.

I start my day with a glass of warm lemon water and Bondi Protein Co Collagen Blend, to build up my skin’s elasticity and collagen.

I have very curly and dry hair that I heat style, so it needs a lot of love and care. Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfection and No. 6 Bond Smoother [both $50] are my saviours. I also love Ogx Moroccan Oil for a good boost of shine.”

BENEFIT Hoola Matte Bronzer, $29; LIBERTY BELLE Eye Do Peptide Wrinkle Defence Eye Gel, $168, and Superhero Moisturiser, $138; MACABALM Moisturising Balm, $29.95; PANTENE Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal Shampoo and Conditioner, $7.99 each; SK-II Facial Treatment Mask, $150 for six; KEVYN AUCOIN Eyelash Curler, $34.

LA ROCHE-POSAY Anthelios Ultra Facial Sunscreen SPF50+, $29.95; PALMER’S Ultra Gentle Facial Cleansing Oil, $15.99; SKINCEUTICALS Hydrating B5 Gel, $137; NARS Lipstick, $40; MAC Matte Lipstick, $30, and Studio Fix Powder, $55; BONDI PROTEIN CO Collagen Blend Powder, $29.99; OGX Argan Oil of Morocco Penetrating Oil, $24.99; GUCCI Bloom EDP, 50ml, $155; CHLOÉ Roses de Chloé EDT, 50ml, $115.

THE AC TOR

PIA MILLER Caffeine, a simple makeup regimen and meditating keep this actor feeling grounded.

“My skincare routine is extremely simple. MAC’s Eye Pencil in Coffee [$37], my Macabalm, Benefit’s Hoola Bronzer and Kevyn Aucoin’s lash curler are essentials I love. If I do pop out to the shops or to walk around the block, I will always use an SPF. I don’t do anything too crazy with my skin but I do love to keep it looking and feeling amazing, so I have monthly treatments at either Vaia Beauty in Sydney or Liberty Belle Skin Centre in Melbourne.

I cleanse my face using Liberty Belle’s Heartfelt [$70] in the morning, then use the rest of the Liberty Belle skin routine, which consists of Eye Do eye cream, Glam Squad Hydrating and Brightening Serum [$144] and Superhero Moisturiser. I also love an SK-II sheet mask.

I love Pantene’s Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal Shampoo and Conditioner. It makes my hair feel smooth and lightweight, plus it has no nasties!”

THE BEAUTY CHEF Glow

T H E FA S H I O N D E S I G N E R

JODHI MEARES The beauty minimalist believes in inner health and a clean beauty routine.

Inner Beauty Essential, $65; BIOSSANCE Squalane + Vitamin C Rose Oil, $110; Squalane + Antioxidant Cleansing Oil, $46, and 100% Squalane Oil, $49; LEPAAR Tinted Sole Lip + Face Balm, $28; MAC Extended Play Gigablack Lash Mascara, $39.

ARMANI BEAUTY Luminous Silk Foundation, $105; HASK Monoi Coconut Oil Dry Shampoo, $9.99; SISLEY So

Volume Mascara, $82, and Phyto-Cernes Éclat Eye Concealer, $125; HASK Monoil Coconut Oil Nourishing Hair Oil, $4.99; L’ARTISAN PARFUMEUR Noir Exquis EDP, 100ml, $240.

T H E H O L LY W O O D S T Y L I S T

J E S S I CA E LBAU M This LA stylist likes to switch up her beauty, but has a few staples she relies on.

“I love to mix and match items to find the right cocktail. I am also very organised, so when I need to pull things for a client or myself, I know where everything is. Hask’s Monoi Coconut Oil Nourishing Hair Oil helps with flyaways and managing frizz on nearly every hair type [and] is also great for dry hands and nails. I also cannot live without dry shampoo, not only for oil control but for texture and volume. Hask’s Coconut Dry Shampoo works so well.

I also can’t live without Sisley Paris concealer and Volume Mascara and the Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. And I rotate Le Labo Santal 33 [EDP, 100ml, $425] and L’Artisan Noir Exquis, which I bought in Paris; it’s warm and unique. I love Sisley’s Black Rose Mask [$200] to soothe my tired skin.

The biggest beauty lesson I ever learnt is always wash your makeup off before bed and don’t try to shape your own eyebrows!”

ALSO SHOWN: LOWANNA BASIC FOUNDATION BRUSH, TIP & BLEND LIP & EYE BRUSH, ELEVEN AUSTRALIA SMALL ROUND BRUSH.

“My bathroom cupboard looks more like a naturopath’s room than a bathroom cupboard! I’m a big believer that glowing skin starts from the inside. I love the Beauty Chef’s products in particular and notice a huge difference when I’m taking them.

I’ve been using Alpha Keri Aloe Soothe Lotion [$21.99] on my body for years. You can buy it at a0ny pharmacy, it’s perfume-free, non-comedogenic and it’s super hydrating. I love to add essential oils to customise the smell.

When it comes to my beauty routine, I am very much a low maintenance, wash-and-wear girl. The quicker I can get out the door the better!

Last year I discovered Biossance products on a trip to the US. I believe there is such a thing as doing too much for your skin, so I like to keep it simple. I’m religiously using Squalane + Antioxidant Cleansing Oil and 100% Squalane Oil. My daily routine also includes the Biossance Rose and Vitamin C Oil, Rationale Beautiful Skin Superfluid SPF50 [$92], Lepaar Lip and Face Balm in Gold Sole and a good mascara, like MAC. To look after my hair I really love Shu Uemura’s Moisture Velvet collection [from $48 each], which leaves my hair feeling so soft.

I prefer to mix essential oils to create a signature scent. Currently I’m mixing patchouli with the austere, earthy scent of frankincense.

I relax and recharge through yoga, chanting and moving meditation, and I practise traditional yoga 5–6 times a week.”

GREG NATALE MARBLE POLAR BOWL BIANCO & NERO, GREGNATALE.COM. SPECIAL THANKS TO PARAMOUNT HOUSE HOTEL, SURRY HILLS.

BE AU T Y

KORA ORGANICS Noni Glow Sleeping Mask, $62; ESTÉE LAUDER Revitalizing

Supreme + Night Intensive Restorative Crème, $142; ECO TAN Glory Oil, $49.95; JURLIQUE Rosewater Balancing Mist, $52; TOM FORD Rose Prick EDP, 50ml, $480; MCOBEAUTY Miracle Hydra Glow Oil-Free Foundation, $28, XtendLash Mascara, $24, and Cheek & Lip Tint, $16; TOM FORD Lip Color, $74.

THE COMEDIAN

CELESTE BARBER With a busy family, the social-media sensation is all about efficiency with her beauty routine.

“My bathroom cupboard is full of free products. It’s crazy, I have a lot of things I don’t know what to do with, but I keep them because they’re fancy.

One surprising beauty product in my cupboard is Eco Tan’s Glory Oil and MCoBeauty’s Mega Balm All-Over Ointment [$12]. I put this poor face through a lot and I do need to hydrate her.

When it comes to my beauty routine, I’m very low maintenance. I love makeup, but getting ready every day for me takes a grand total of two minutes. I have two young boys. They aren’t sticking around for me to put on lashes.

In my makeup bag I always have MCoBeauty’s Miracle Hydra Glow OilFree Foundation, MCoBeauty XtendLash Mascara, MCoBeauty Brow Fill & Set [$20], MCoBeauty Cheek & Lip Tint in shade Tango, and a Tom Ford lipstick I live in the sun, so I’m all about serums, moisturiser and sunscreen. I use Jurlique’s Rosewater spray, the Eco Tan Glory Oil, Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme + Night Intensive Restorative Crème. I also wear Kora’s Noni Glow Sleeping Mask most nights.

Tom Ford Rose Prick eau de parfum is my go-to. It reminds me of that time

we made out [for a parody video after New York Fashion Week], and that is a memory I never want to forget.

In terms of my hair, I use whatever Brad Mullins tells me to use. I have the thinnest hair and he is the only one who knows how to make me look like I have Victoria’s Secret hair.

I love a facial. I try to have one every two months, but it’s been about six months since my last one, so I’m all about doing sheet masks at home. The more crazy I look, the better. I like the silver Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Mask [$125 for four].”

marieclaire.com.au | 143

N

EW

ES

SEA

N S TA O S

PL

GIAMBATTISTA VALLI A/W 2021

BE AU TY

1 2

3

edit the

1 NAPOLEON PERDIS Light Thief

Liquid Highlight in Champagne Noir, $55. 2 REVLON Colorstay Light Cover Foundation, $29.95. 3 DIOR Dior Backstage Face & Body Powder-NoPowder, $70.

Skin feeling the effects of winter? Revlon’s pomegranate extractinfused foundation offers 12 hours of hydration and sheer coverage. Also try Dior’s translucent powder, which provides a soft matte finish with just enough luminosity to warm up tired skin (use it with or without foundation). For added radiance, add in Napoleon Perdis’ liquid tint. It adds instant glow to a dull complexion.

WINDBURNT CHEEKS

Hyaluronic Complex, $110 for 14.

144 | marieclaire.com.au

FROM LEFT: HOURGLASS Vanish Blush Stick in Sacred, $70; WESTMAN ATELIER Baby Cheeks Blush Stick in Bichette, $73.

A SK THE EDITOR

RATIONALE #3 The Tinted Serum SPF50+, $172.

Q: Do I need a finishing serum?

A: If you feel more comfortable with skincare than makeup, a finish serum is the ideal final step for boosting hydration, smoothing texture and locking in your other skincare products. Rationale’s tinted serum (apply it after moisturiser) offers calming zinc oxide in a super-light texture for a veil of protection, colour and silky finish.

STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI; EDWARD URRUTIA; GORUNWAY/SNAPPER IMAGES. WORDS BY ALEX DUFFY.

VIDA GLOW

NEED A TO P UP? Vida Glow’s new daily ingestible ampoule works like its topical serum counterparts to improve skin’s water retention. Ultrahydrating hyaluronic acid is cocktailed with vitamin C and zinc to relieve dry and irritated skin from top to toe.

As the temperature drops, a rosy, burnt-umber flush simultaneously adds warmth and softly sculpts cheeks. Mimicking the work of a brisk walk, these creamy sticks build up to emulate your natural flush, meaning they’ll suit all skin tones.

Collagen is the holy grail when it comes to skin radiance, but is it better to use a topical or an ingestible? We ask a scientist if bolstering our diet with a collagen supplement is all its cracked up to be. By Sally Hunwick

STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY: SEVAK BABAKHANI.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

BE AU T Y

I

n case you didn’t get the memo, looking after your skin has changed. Once, we were given gold stars for cleansing (A+ for doing it twice), and slathering on an essence, a serum or two and moisturising before applying SPF. But now, there’s a whole new beauty routine to get to know, and it’s all about collagen. We’re not only applying it directly onto our faces, we’re also adding it to our diets to help us reap the benefits from within.

First, a science lesson. What exactly is collagen?

Dr Michelle Squire, a PhD scientist and educator, explains it “is a large and complex protein molecule, which makes up about 30 per cent of our total protein mass.” It is also the brickwork for radiant, younger-looking skin. “Collagen sits in the dermis where, together with other proteins such as elastin and hyaluronic acid, after 40,” says Squire. “By our it forms the extracellular matrix,” eighties, we’ve lost 75 per cent Squire continues. “This supporting of our overall collagen.” meshwork structure gives skin its If you’re diligently sipping strength, resilience and bounce.” on bone broth, you’ll be warmWhile topical skincare is importing your soul but could be ant for hydration and for protecting missing the mark on your skin us from the elements, Squire says goals. “Many people think you there are limits to its ability to boost can get enough collagen from collagen. “Topically applied collagen your diet, but collagen in its acts as a humectant [a moisture-bindnative dietary form isn’t ing ingredient], but it won’t boost the absorbable by the body,” says skin’s supply because the molecule is Squire. She explains our collatoo large and complex to penetrate gen needs first to be digested the dermis and stimulate collagen “MARINE COLLAGEN by intestinal enzymes into production,” she explains.

CAN PROMOTE SKIN peptides and amino acids to Products also need to be in the FIRMNESS AND SMOOTH travel via the bloodstream to right doses to have any real impact.

FINE LINES AND WRINKLES” the dermis, where it gathers at “High-percentage glycolic acid significant levels within hours and above 15 per cent L-ascorbic – Anna Lahey, founder of Vida Glow of ingestion. acid [vitamin C] can provide a It pays to do your homework before you add collasmall stimulus to our skin’s collagen production,” gen to cart. “When deciding on a collagen supplement, Squire explains. “But if you really want to amp up look for one containing highly purified collagen from your natural collagen-producing machinery for siga sustainable source,” says Squire. She points out nificant anti-ageing results, the only ingredient that leading collagen brand Vida Glow for its purified, will do this is a prescription-strength retinoid.” concentrated and reliable dose of collagen peptides By the time we’ve said goodbye to our teens, our and amino acids, which have been broken down into a collagen supplies have already begun to wane, which form that the body can readily absorb. can lead to sagging skin, a loss of vitality and wrinAnna Lahey, founder of Vida Glow, puts it like kles. “Collagen depletion starts to happen in our this. “Our marine collagen can improve skin tone and twenties, increasing to one per cent loss each year texture, promote firmness, increase elasticity and smooth fine lines and wrinkles.”

VIDA GLOW Natural Marine Collagen And there is science to back it up. The Centre de Cranberry & Lime, Original, Pharmacologie Clinique Appliqueé à la Dermatologie and Mango, $59.95 each supports the finding that low-molecular-weight collafor 30 servings. gen peptides can help improve skin’s collagen density, elasticity and hydration. “There is also early evidence to suggest that collagen peptides can reduce signs of UV damage in the skin,” adds Squire.

Like anything, you’ll need to commit to see real results. “I’m consistent with my collagen intake,” says Lahey. “I take collagen at least twice daily. Thanks to my inner-beauty routine, the rest of my beauty regimen is simple.” Bottoms up.

marieclaire.com.au | 147

BE AU TY Carolyn Murphy shot by Steven Meisel for Estée Lauder in 2001.

ON

SP

OTLIG

Carolyn Murphy

HT

“MY BEAUTY ROUTINE HAS EVOLVED IN THE PAST 20 YEARS”

As Estée Lauder celebrates 75 years, marie clarie sits down with one of the brand’s most-loved spokesmodels.

The nature-lover and mother shares her defining moments

1

“My first memory of Estée Lauder is from my nana’s vanity, where she had her perfumes and gold tubes of lipstick organised.

I would play dress-up, put on her red lipstick and spray on White Linen perfume – probably too much of both!

“I have so many special memories and moments with my Estée Lauder family. I feel very lucky. [Estée Lauder’s granddaughter] Aerin Lauder and I bonded over our newborns and motherhood on the first campaign shoot. Our children were together on set with us in the South of France one year.”

HER PINCH-ME MOMENTS

“My biggest pinch-me moment was when I visited Aerin and [her uncle] Leonard Lauder in Mrs Estée Lauder’s office, and when I got the phone call that the brand was signing me. It was more than a dream come true; it still feels like a dream!

“Estée was so inspiring and such a trailblazer. One of my favourite of her quotes is: ‘I never dreamt of success, I worked for it.’

I also love: ‘Confidence breeds beauty.’ She emphasised feeling empowered.”

148 | marieclaire.com.au

HER ROUTINE

2

3

FROM TOP: ESTÉE LAUDER Pure

Color Envy Sculpting Lipstick in Daydream, $53 (1); Advanced Night Repair Synchronized MultiRecovery Complex, $159 (2); ReNutriv Ultimate Lift Regenerating Youth Crème, $425 (3).

“My beauty routine has evolved in the past 20 years. Now I take more time to indulge and revel in self-care. My night-time routine is cleansing with Re-Nutriv, taking a bath using Youth Dew Bath Oil, applying Advanced Night Repair and either Supreme or Re-Nutriv Moisturizer and Eye Cream.

I have used Weleda Baby Calendula Body Cream since my daughter was an infant; it’s super hydrating. I also drink chamomile tea and take magnesium to help me relax.”

ON BE AUT Y

“I’m a big believer in beauty from the inside out, so I drink a lot of water, eat a plantbased diet, exercise at least four days a week and try to get enough sleep. I believe ageing has a lot to do with mindset. My nana would always say, ‘Beauty is as beauty does,’ so it’s important to be kind to others and yourself, laugh a lot, and enjoy life. My role model is any woman who takes charge of her life and makes things happen. There are so many I admire, but of course my nana and my mother were my first.”

AS TOLD TO SALLY HUNWICK; PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN MEISEL; EDWARD URRUTIA; SEVAK BABAKHANI.

THE MEMORIES

VIP BEAUTY ACCESS

JOIN BEAUTYcrew IN MAY TO WIN

1 OF 5 VINOPERFECT RADIANCE SERUM COMPLEXION CORRECTING

ENTER NOW

beautycrew.com.au/caudalie

(valued at $110 each)*

BEAUTYcrew is the number one online destination for the latest beauty buys, trends and easy to achieve how-tos.

+ Be a part of our Review Crew and get selected to trial a range of beauty products + Receive a VIP box when you review beauty products on site (the more reviews you write, the better your chances!) + Gain exclusive access to beauty news, how-tos and interviews

BEAUTYCREW.COM.AU @beautycrew

*T&Cs apply, see www.beautycrew.com.au/caudalie for full T&Cs. Commences 12.00am AEST/AEDT on 1 May 2021. Ends 11.59pm AEST/AEDT on 31 May 2021.

Only entrants who sign up to www.beautycrew.com.au in May are eligible. Drawn at Are Media, Level 9, 54 Park Street, Sydney, NSW 2000 at 11.00am AEST/AEDT on 10 June 2021. Total prize pool: x5 Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum Complexion Correcting. Total prize value is RRP $550. The Promoter is Are Media Pty Limited (ABN 18 053 273 546) of 54 Park Street, Sydney, NSW 2000.

BEAU TY

“THE CALENDULA HERBALEXTRACT TONER HAS BEEN A CUSTOMER FAVOURITE SINCE THE 1960S, WITH EIGHT BOTTLES SOLD EVERY MINUTE AROUND THE WORLD” – Cammie Cannella, Kiehl’s vice-president of global education 1

2

3

SPOTLIGHT ON

BACK IN TIME Kiehl’s celebrates 170 years with limited-edition releases of fan favourites, and a pop art mural in Melbourne’s CBD

R

emember when we used to have time?

When we would go to one trusted place for all our skincare and health needs, where we could talk (and had the time to really talk) to a few select people who knew exactly what we needed? With online stores available on our phones, auto-fill credit-card details and same-day delivery options, it may seem like those good old days are over. But they’re not.

Take Kiehl’s. This year, the cosmetics brand will celebrate its 170th anniversary. It is an impressive milestone in and of itself, but even more so in an era when beauty brands come and go daily. Add to that the historical and technological changes of the past 170 years, and it’s truly remarkable that the brand is not only still around but has also retained its cult-like following and continues to sell the product that made it famous, the Original Musk Oil.

150 | marieclaire.com.au

1 KIEHL’S Ultra Facial Cream, $51; 2 Calendula

Herbal-Extract Toner, $59; 3 Creamy Eye Treatment, $50.

So how is it that Kiehl’s has stayed strong through the decades? By focusing on what customers appreciate most: authenticity and personalised service.

“The Kiehl’s business model is founded on two principles of our success: our highly efficacious formulations and our accessible, customised service approach,” says Cammie Cannella, vice-president of global education and customer experience.

“The spirit of Kiehl’s is one of giving: giving every customer the feeling that they are special.” This ethos can be credited to Irving Morse, who bought the original New York pharmacy from its owner, John Kiehl, in 1921 and transformed it into a dispensary for cure-alls such as herbs, tinctures and honey.

Complimentary skin consultations and trybefore-you-buy services were installed very early on, building the brand a reputation as one that cared about the individual and their skin goals.

Kiehl’s will celebrate 170 years with four limitededition releases of its cult favourites, including the Calendula Herbal-Extract Toner, a soothing, alcoholfree formula that helps minimise breakouts; and the much-loved Midnight Recovery Oil, which mimics natural skin lipids to restore moisture.

Locally, Australian artist Dave Homer will create a mural outside the flagship Melbourne Central store.

Perhaps it will tempt busy shoppers to pause, take a breath, and maybe even go and chat to someone – the way we all once did.

STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEVAK BABAKHANI. WORDS BY SALLY HUNWICK.

Kiehl’s began in 1851 as a single pharmacy at Third Avenue and East 13th Street, Manhattan.

Thrown away all my other creams and I am not using anything else.

I LOVE IT and have told all my friends!!!

- Cheryl

97% of women loved the stick format

BLOCK EXPRESSION

WRINKLES by up to 82% in 30 minutes, for up to 48 hours

No need to paralyse muscles to reduce visible wrinkles.

Before

Our wrinkle blocking stick contains two power peptides to relax the expressions that create wrinkles, and charge your skin with energy to bounce back from the creasing imprint left behind.

40% 60% 76% After

wrinkle reduction in 7 days

less visible wrinkles in 28 days

eye bag reduction in 7 days

LIFESTYLE F O O D , T R AV E L A N D I N T E R I O R S I N S P I R AT I O N

TURNING I N WA R D S

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NIKOLAI VON BISMARCK; WORDS BY ANNA MCCOOE.

Supermodel Kate Moss is having an interior design moment. If ever there was proof style extends beyond the wardrobe surely she is it. In the spirit of shifting focus and changing environments, we visualise the overseas travel destinations we’ve been missing and escape on a sensory trip into modern Indian cuisine.

Kate Moss poses with her wallpaper design for De Gournay.

India FLAVOURS OF

TIP:

This traditional dish from Goa, Apart from requiring it to be slow cooked, my version is a toned down one in terms of spice but for those of you who like it spicy, go ahead and add some serious chillies.

From street eats to restaurant chic, Australian chef Sarah Todd shares the light, balanced and flavour-forward recipes of the land she fell in love with

P O R K V I N DA L O O

TIP:

SERVES 4

Use barramundi or coral trout fillets.

If you prefer to cook the fish in the curry, reduce heat to low and add fish for the last 5 minutes.

500g piece pork loin, trimmed, cut into 2.5cm cubes 1 tbsp garlic paste 1 tbsp ginger paste 1 tbsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground turmeric ½ small red onion, thinly sliced toasted cashews, crispy curry leaves, coriander leaves, steamed rice and lime wedges, roti, to serve V I N D A L O O PA S T E

1 tsp ground cumin ½ tsp ground cardamom ½ tsp ground cinnamon 1½ tsp brown mustard seeds 1 tsp fenugreek seeds 3 dried red chillies, soaked, blended to a paste ⅓ cup white wine vinegar 2 tsp salt ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp brown sugar 2 tbsp vegetable oil 2 medium onions, thinly sliced roti bread to serve 1 To make vindaloo paste, combine spices, seeds, chilli paste, vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar in a small bowl; set aside. Heat oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until golden and crispy (6–8 minutes). Remove onions with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towel; reserve oil in pan. Blend or process onions with 2-3 tablespoons of water, until smooth. 2 Add onions to spice mixture in bowl and stir to mix.

Heat reserved oil in pan over mediumhigh heat. Cook pork, in batches, until browned on all sides (2 minutes) and remove. 3 Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic and ginger pastes to pan and cook, stirring, until fragrant (1 minute).

Add ground coriander and turmeric; cook, stirring, until fragrant (1 minute).

Return pork and any juices to pan, along with vindaloo paste and 1 cup water. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until mixture has thickened and pork is tender (approx 1 hour). 4 To serve, top vindaloo with red onion, cashews, crispy curry leaves and coriander. Serve with

G OA N F I S H C U R RY SERVES 4

⅓ cup vegetable oil 1 onion, finely chopped 1 sprig fresh curry leaves 1 cup coconut milk

Goan fish curry.

2 tbsp tamarind puree 1 tbsp lime juice 4 x 150g firm white fish fillets, skin on (see tip) 1 lime, cut into wedges rice to serve COCONUT CURRY BASE

½ tsp cumin seeds ½ tsp coriander seeds ¾ tsp garam masala ¼ tsp ground turmeric ½ tbsp ghee ¼ tsp brown mustard seeds 1-2 fresh curry leaves ¼ onion, finely chopped ¼ tsp each garlic paste and ginger paste 1 small tomato, roughly chopped, blended to a puree 2 dried red chillies, soaked, stalks removed, blended to a paste 150ml coconut milk 1 For coconut curry base, dry roast cumin and coriander seeds in a small frypan over high heat until they start to crackle (1 minute). Cool slightly, pound with a mortar and pestle, or blend in a spice grinder, until finely ground; stir in garam masala and turmeric. Heat ghee in a saucepan over high heat. Add mustard seeds and cook until they splutter (30 seconds). Add curry leaves

and cook for 30 seconds. Reduce heat to medium, add onion and sauté until very tender and starting to caramelise (6-8 minutes). Add garlic and ginger pastes along with spice mix; cook, stirring, until fragrant (1 minute). Add pureed tomato and chilli paste; bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half (20 minutes). Stir in coconut milk and simmer for 3 minutes. Set aside.

2 Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat; cook onion until softened (5 minutes). Add curry leaves and cook until fragrant (30 seconds). Add curry base, coconut milk and tamarind puree. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly (10 minutes).

Remove from heat; stir through lime juice. Season to taste. If mixture is too thick, add water little by little until desired consistency is reached.

3 Heat remaining oil in a large non-stick frypan over high heat; cook fish, in batches, skin-side down for 2 minutes. Turn fish and cook a further minute, or until done. Transfer to a plate and cover to keep warm. Spoon curry mixture into base of shallow serving bowls and top with rice and fish. Serve with lime wedges.

marieclaire.com.au | 155

SERVES 4 (AS A SIDE)

4 small potatoes 24 store-bought papdi chaat (see tip) 1 cup Greek-style yoghurt ½ small red onion, finely diced ¾ cup canned chickpeas, drained 1 cup fine sev 1 tsp chaat masala TA M A R I N D C H U T N E Y

1 tsp vegetable oil ½ tsp cumin seeds 1 long green chilli, finely chopped ½ tsp ginger paste ¼ tsp red chilli powder 1 pinch asafoetida (optional) ½ cup tamarind puree ½ cup grated jaggery 2 pitted medjool dates CORIANDER CHUTNEY

1 cup fresh mint leaves 1 cup fresh coriander leaves 1 fresh long green chilli 5mm piece fresh ginger, peeled, chopped ½ tsp chaat masala ¼ tsp black salt (kala namak) 1½ tsp lemon juice 1 For tamarind chutney, heat oil in a small frypan over high heat. Add cumin seeds and toast until they

start to crackle (1 minute). Reduce heat to medium, then add green chilli, ginger paste, chilli powder, asafoetida, tamarind puree and ¼ cup water; cook, stirring, until fragrant (2 minutes). Add the jaggery and dates; cook, stirring, until mixture starts to thicken and jaggery has dissolved (4 minutes).

Season to taste. Cool slightly, then transfer to a food processor or blender, add about 1 tablespoon of water (if still too thick add a little more water) and process until smooth; season to taste. Store excess in airtight jar in fridge for up to two weeks. 2 For coriander chutney, place all ingredients in a food processor or blender, then add about 1 tablespoon of water (or more if needed). Process until smooth and season to taste.

3 Place potatoes in a medium saucepan of salted cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until potatoes are just tender (approximately 15 minutes).

Drain and allow to cool. Cut into 1cm thick rounds. Cover, and refrigerate until required. To assemble, place papdi chaat on a serving platter. Top each with a potato round. Spoon over a little yoghurt, then tamarind chutney and coriander chutney.

Top with red onion, chickpeas, sev and chaat masala.

Papdi chaat.

SPICED BAKED PUMPKIN WITH LEMON CASHEW BUTTER CREAM & CRISPY CHICKPEAS SERVES 4 (AS A SIDE)

500g kent pumpkin, cut into 4 x 2cm thick wedges ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil 1 tbsp garam masala 400g can chickpeas, drained ½ tsp maple syrup 1 tsp dried thyme 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp chaat masala 150g cherry tomatoes, halved 1 cup crunchy sprouts (alfalfa, snow pea or radish) 50g pomegranate seeds 100g feta, crumbled dill sprigs, to serve LEMON CASHEW BUTTER CREAM

NOTE

The pasta is optional but strongly recommended; otherwise, some bread to mop up the juices will do the trick.

¼ cup cashew butter juice of ½ lemon 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil 1 Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced). Line two oven trays with baking paper. 2 Place pumpkin on one tray. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of oil and sprinkle with garam masala; season, toss well to coat.

Roast until golden and tender (20–25 minutes). Meanwhile, put chickpeas on second tray. Drizzle with maple syrup, remaining oil, thyme and fennel seeds; season, toss to coat.

Roast with pumpkin until golden and crispy (20 minutes). Remove from oven and sprinkle immediately with chaat masala; toss to coat. Cool. 3 For lemon cashew butter cream, combine all ingredients in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon water; season to taste. 4 To serve, smear lemon cashew butter cream on each serving plate. Top with pumpkin, tomatoes, sprouts, chickpeas, pomegranate seeds, feta and dill.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MIDDLETON.

PA P D I C H A AT

L I F E ST YL E

SHAHI TUK RA IN

DI

AN

BR

E

A D PU

D DI NG SER

VES 4-6

TIP

This dish is best made on the day of serving.

600ml thickened cream 395g can sweetened condensed milk 1 tsp ground cardamom 6-8 slices raisin bread or white bread ¼ cup ghee or vegetable oil ½ cup raisins or sultanas ¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted 1 Place cream and condensed milk in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat; cook, stirring, until smooth (1–2 minutes). Bring to the boil then reduce heat to low; cook, stirring, until mixture has thickened slightly and reduced by half (about 1 hour). 2 Add cardamom and mix well to combine; remove from heat and stand for 10 minutes. Transfer to a heatproof bowl

and refrigerate until cold and has set slightly. 3 Meanwhile, remove crusts and cut bread into triangles. Heat ghee in a heavy-based frypan over medium heat. Fry bread, in batches, until crisp and golden (1 minute each side). Transfer to a plate. Add raisins to pan; cook, stirring, until puffed (30 seconds). Drain on paper towel. 4 To serve, divide custard between serving bowls; top with bread and sprinkle with raisins and almonds.

My Indian Kitchen, by Sarah Todd ($25, Are Media Books), aremedia books.com.au.

marieclaire.com.au | 157

STEAL HER STYLE

KATE MOSS The model and all-round fashion icon is turning her attention to interiors

M

orning-after sequins, boho florals and flapper-era fringe.

High-end handbags mixed with flea market trinkets. Ballet flats, bed hair and a devil-may-care attitude. It all boils down to just two words: Kate Moss.

In the mid-’90s, the British supermodel’s sartorial style was generationdefining. The insouciance with which she put together outfits was much imitated but never matched. More recently, the fashion legend has turned her focus to effortlessly chic interiors.

In Gloucestershire, England, you can own a Kate Moss-designed, fully furnished holiday house for a cool £3.5 million ($6.35 million). The Barnhouse, a five-bedroom, sevenbathroom dream, hit the market in mid-2020 after fetching between £10,000 and £25,000 ($18,000 and $45,000) a week as a luxurious short-term rental.

In the heart of the Cotswolds, the weekender is part of an estate owned by hot-as-hell architecture firm Yoo, called The Lakes. Moss came on board as a collaborator in 2015 after meeting property entrepreneur John Hitchcox in true Mossy style: at the pub. “When he told me about The Barnhouse in the middle of the silver birch wood, I was intrigued and then excited to become part of the design team,” she told the British press at the time.

The look is bucolic English country meets glitter rock, with House of Hackney wallpaper, velvet Talisman button-backed sofas, a fringed coffee table, Ziggy Stardust-inspired thunderbolt motifs and artworks by Damien Hirst. Oh, and a portrait of Moss, by Allen Jones, hangs in the bathroom.

Moss followed up her interiors foray by collaborating on wallpaper with the prestigious British interiors brand de Gournay. The hand-painted floral design, called Anemones in Light, is moody and romantic with a “mono-

“My style is drawn from different eras, mixing the old with the new” — Kate Moss

chromatic, art deco feel”, she says.

Unsurprisingly not a morning person, Moss took her cues from twilight.

“My style is drawn from different eras, mixing the old with the new, custom pieces mixed with found treasures, like the mix of couture with second-hand,” she says. “It’s how I also like to dress.”

In her own silver bathroom, the greyscale Dusk colourway – inspired by film noir – sets an indolent, up-all-night mood. Moss says her parties always end up in the bathroom. Fittingly, the jewel box of a space is decked with a vintage crystal chandelier over the soaking tub, and a mirrored vanity lined with antique perfume bottles. Embroidered silver curtains made from saris brings the shimmer, but in a last night’s jewellery kind of way. It’s all so very Kate Moss.

For more information, visit degournay.com.

Kate Moss’ interior design project for the architecture firm Yoo in the Cotswolds, England.

ABOVE Anemones in Light wallpaper by Kate Moss x de Gournay.

L I F E ST YL E

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Kate Moss in her London bathroom, featuring silver sari curtains; interiors at The Barnhouse, designed by the supermodel; the bathroom features a marble sink and art deco cabinet with Moss’ de Gournay wallpaper.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NIKOLAI VON BISMARCK; COURTESY OF DE GOURNEY. WORDS BY ANNA MCCOOE.

House of Hackney cushion, $373, radfordfurnishings. com.au.

Cire Trudon candle, $145, libertine parfumerie. com.au.

SHOP the look Sonic Editions framed print, $331, mrporter.com.

James Said chair, $5135, jamessaid.com.au.

Loom rug, POA, loomrugs.com.

Bloomingville vase, $75, trithouse.com.au.

Wander

LUST As the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out, international travel is starting to feel possible. We asked five fenced-in Australians to give us the scoop on the place they’ve been missing

L I F E ST YL E

Morocco WITH JULIA GREEN, GREENHOUSE INTERIORS

Interior stylist Julia Green may live on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsular, but her heart and soul are in Morocco.

Pre-pandemic, she hosted tours of her other heartland, focused on its colours, style and flavours.

What I miss most: I miss the riotous colour explosions on every street corner – the dry heat, the chaotic market scenes, the authentic flavours full of spice. I miss the coloured doors and the secrets behind each of them, the scent of orange blossom, and the incredible creative scene.

How Morocco has inspired me: I first travelled to Morocco in my twenties, and the moment my feet hit the soil I felt at home among every colourful scene. All the way back then, I recall making a commitment to return to Australia and embark upon a creative career change. When I decided to return with [friend and co-tour guide] Pip Brett a few years ago, it reignited the fire in my belly to turn my hand to new creative ventures.

On our first tour, I asked my long-time friend and colleague to accompany us, and we wrote a book titled Vivid, which launches in July.

The one thing that takes me back there: I bought a perfume called Orange Blossom and still wear it daily.

Every single morning that I spray it, I am transported back to the riad where we stay, and I can almost taste the exotic breakfasts on our rooftop. Little did I know I would be cancelling so many tours due to COVID. My Orange Blossom is now dangerously low. It will be a sad day when I completely run out!

The first place I’ll be returning to when I get back: We always begin our tours at Riad Yasmine; it’s like a home

“The whole country is just vibrant, and bursting with surprises” – Julia Green

away from home. The couple who run it, alongside their beautiful staff, welcome us with hugs, mint tea and delicious treats, and we soak our feet in their green-tiled pool, completely hidden from the chaotic street scenes just outside the front door. It is a totally magical place, full of beauty, history and intrigue. The interiors are sublime, and I am itching to get back there.

Finding the real Morocco: Morocco is not an easy country to navigate solo.

To experience the real deal, I would recommend hiring a reputable guide who can show you the ropes so that you are not misled, get lost, or waste precious time on public transport.

Like all countries, the touristy route is OK for a taste, but there is so much more to Morocco than this, and it would be a travesty to miss it.

My Moroccan luxe list: The Yves Saint Laurent Museum is a must-see. Riad Yasmine, Berber Lodge, Beldi Country Club for accommodation, or glamping in the Agafay desert. For meals, I love La Famille, I limoni and Nomad.

marieclaire.com.au | 161

I taly W I T H A L I S S A A N D B E N P O P P E T T , W A N D E R E R S T R AV E L C O .

What we miss most: Ben: We miss the people, food, culture and our friends, and we really miss those volcanic thermal springs! They have several thermal parks with hot and cold pools, natural cave saunas, thermal mud treatments and stunning views. It’s like a wellness Disneyland, where you look 20 years younger until you get back on the plane home. Every hotel has its own underground springs, so the thermal goodness is readily accessible island-wide. Sorgeto bay is the best place to watch the sunset with locals (white speedos and all).

How the region inspired us: Alissa: Italy is our muse. My Italian heritage and Aussie/Italian dual citizenship was a big part of that. In regards to Ischia specifically, we designed many

of our products there, and our Azzurra colourway is inspired by the sea there.

The one thing that takes us back there: Ben: There is a digestif that is only made in Ischia and pretty much can only be found there, called Rucolino. It is brown and sweet with a little bitter, and delicious after dinner.

We imported a good personal supply of it to Australia during 2020. It was a great addition to lockdown last year. It is made with wild rocket, so it’s pretty much like eating a salad, right?

Plans to return: Alissa: We are meant to be heading to Ischia with a group of our besties in July for my 40th. I sadly don’t think that will happen this year.

When we get back to Italy, we desperately need to see our sunglasses manufacturer and Chronicles gin distiller in the north. After the work

“Allow yourself to be fully immersed in la dolce vita” – Alissa Poppett

is done, it will be straight to Ischia if it’s summer.

Finding the real Italy: Alissa: To connect with a place like Italy, you need to immerse yourself in its rich culture. That means spending some time touring its famous historical sites – molti turisti! But places like Ischia and neighbouring Procida are also full of real-life Italy. Talk to people, learn a little basic Italian – even if it has an Aussie twang. Be respectful, not entitled, and get to know people. (The best way is by being a loyal patron of their establishment!)

Our Italian luxe list: Alissa: we love San Montano Resort & Spa, which is perched on the cliff above a beach club.

Our favourite restaurant is Delfinos, and a day trip to Capri on the hydrofoil is an absolute must.

For an Italian fix in Australia: Alissa: In Sydney, we are loving a’Mare at Crown Towers. Then there’s Beppi’s, which reminds us of a favourite restaurant in Rome. And Pendolino for an Italian fine-dining experience.

Local go-tos are Giro Osteria and Queen Margherita of Savoy, both in Cronulla and both molto buono!

GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY.

The purveyors of travel goods made for adventure, Alissa and Ben Poppett found their passion for leather in Italy.

They made it their life’s work to bring the spirit of la dolce vita home, but the moment the world reopens they’ll be packing their soft, full-grain leather bags for the tiny volcanic island of Ischia, to the west of the Gulf of Naples.

L I F E ST YL E

Paris WITH LUC Y F OLK , JEWELLERY DESIGNER

The accessories titan spent the decade before lockdown living between Paris, Melbourne and Sydney. The past 18 months have seen her grounded in Australia.

But, as the trope goes, she’ll always have Paris.

India W I T H S A R A H T O D D , R E S T A U R AT E U R

After appearing on Masterchef in 2014 and studying at Le Cordon Bleu in London, Australian chef Sarah Todd moved to India. She spent seven months setting up Antares, a 400-seat open-air restaurant and beach club on the shores of Goa, on the south-western coast. Until COVID, she returned every year. When she’s not cooking up nostalgic Indian cuisine (see page 154), she’s dreaming about her Goan homecoming.

What I miss most about India: Many things make India so special.

All your senses are captivated from the moment you set foot on Indian soil, from the sounds and smells of the markets and street stalls to the majestic beauty of the historical buildings. There is something magical about the place. Indians have a saying that sums up their kindness and generosity: “My guest is my god,” and you truly feel this hospitality.

The dish that takes me back: Biryani.

You can find a variation of the classic in every state of India. Spending so much time living and travelling around the country, I pride myself in recognising the subtle nuances of this mouth-watering dish.

Finding the real India: Travel with a local outside the cities. In remote India, the warmth you feel from the locals is indescribable. I had the most

incredible experiences in Nagaland, staying with a tribe in a small village.

My Indian luxe list: Antares Goa, my very first restaurant, is perched on the side of a cliff in Goa, surrounded by coconut trees and overlooking the Arabian Sea. It is arguably the best place in Goa to view the most mesmerising sunsets while sipping on a cocktail.

For food I like: Indian Accent restaurant in Delhi. It was one of the first venues in India to modernise the country’s cuisine, and the experience is unmatchable. For that Western fix, Soho House Mumbai. It’s the best Soho House I have been to in the world. It has a great vibe and a hangout for all of the top Bollywood celebrities for that star-spotting experience. I love Taj Safari Hotel, set in the Vindhya Hills on the edge of Bandhavgarh National Park, and Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, a private hotel in the middle of the lake.

For an Indian fix in Australia: If I’m in Melbourne, it’s Daughter in Law, Tonka and Mrs Singh. If I’m in Sydney, I like Indu.

What I miss most about Paris: The flea markets, definitely.

How the city has inspired me: It’s constantly very sensory in so many ways. Paris has a buzz that feeds creativity, which I love.

The meal that takes me back there: Dinner at Le Verre Volé in the 10th arrondissement.

The first place I’ll be returning to: Elaine Huntzinger for an acupuncture facial Finding the real Paris: Catch the metro to the Marché aux Puces on a Sunday at 7am and get lost for three hours.

My Paris luxe list: The florist Castor-Fleuriste, gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, Aux Des Amis for a drink, Mokonuts for lunch.

For a French fix in Australia: Restaurant Hubert in Sydney or France Soir in Melbourne.

“My favourite destinations are the most remote” – Sarah Todd

marieclaire.com.au | 163

LIFESTYL E

D R E A M L OV E R

C R Y S TA L GA ZER

Oversized bedheads turn a bedroom into a master suite. The wide, padded headboard of Domayne’s Marlow bed is the ultimate case in point, especially when personalised in a choice of fabrics. Pair it with luxurious linen, and voila! Instant sanctuary.

Headboard, POA, domayne.com.au.

Minimalism meets maximalism with Nuura’s new Mirra pendant light range.

The play of light emmitted from the embossed glass bulbs is a total mood.

Nuura pendant lights, from $1100 each, at greatdanefurniture.com.

edit the

Design crush

U COU

164 | marieclaire.com.au

GETTING WA R M E R Biscuits, toast and cappuccinos: here’s proof carbs are the best source of comfort colour inspiration. We’re getting our fix at Miss Amara with its cosy Alessandra tribal rugs, from $169; missamara.com.au.

WORDS BY ANNA MCCOOE.

!

It chops, blends, whips, weighs, mills, kneads and more. And now the machine that does everything is up for grabs. Just subscribe to marie claire for your chance to win a Thermomix TM6 valued at $2269. Visit magshop.com.au/winter10.

WIN

B EN CHTO P B E AU T Y

LD

YO

MKZ Architects nailed the artisinal brief for Black Star Pastry in Sydney’s Newtown with loft ceilings and marble and arched windows. If the iconic watermelon cake wasn’t photogenic enough, the rolling pin installation is bound for Instagram glory; blackstarpastry.com.au.

$50 , 000 Winter Giv way Subscribe or treat a loved one to a marie claire subscription for your chance to win 1 of 20 Thermomix prize packs, valued at over $2,500 each

Prize pack LQFOXGHV

1x Thermomix TM6, 1x Anniversary book, 1x 20cm Spring Form Cake Pan, 2x Cake Tin Liners, 1x blade cover

6XEVFULEHU %HQH˴ WV ˚ 12 issues from $64.99* ˚ Save up to 40% ˚ FREE home delivery

magshop.com.au/winter10

136 116 DQG TXRWH 0ᗦᗥ:0&0

Competition opens on 01/06/2021 at 12:01am AEST and closes 31/07/2021 at 11:59pm AEST. Competition is open to all residents of Australia aged 18 years or over, who subscribe or renew their subscription to one or more magazine titles or purchase any product available on Magshop (magshop.com.au). Competition draw will take place 09/08/2021 at 11:00am AEST. Please see aremedia.com. au/privacy for our privacy policy. For full terms and conditions of entry, visit magshop.com.au/wintersale-tc. The Promoter is Are Media Pty Ltd (ABN 18 053 273 546). Authorised under permit numbers: NSW: TP/00018, SA: T21/476, ACT: TP 21/00515

Joan

She documented the mayhem of the ’60s, survived the unimaginable loss of her husband and daughter and became an icon along the way. Alexandra English looks back on the life of the literary legend

DIDION

L I F E S TO RY

I

t’s 1975, and the head of the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley is waiting for Joan Didion to arrive for dinner. He doesn’t know much about the magazine writer and novelist who spent her formative years at Berkeley, trudging around in a dirty raincoat and eating nuts from her pockets. Twenty years after graduating, she has been offered a prestigious teaching appointment at the university, and so this formal faculty dinner is in her honour.

Eventually, Didion walks in: five-foot-two at an exaggeration, dressed in a Chanel suit and white-knuckling a purse that she won’t set down the entire evening.

She’s 41, but the vibe she’s giving off is of someone trying their best to look like an adult, but who might duck under the table any second. Once she leaves, the faculty decides this woman – ostensibly miserable, inarticulate, unsure of herself and wearing the entirely wrong thing (who wears Chanel to a dinner party? Apparently, no-one in the ’70s) – will be eaten alive in the classroom.

The department secretary, seeing an opportunity to humiliate Didion, books the university’s largest theatre for her public address, thinking she won’t be able to fill it. Then, suddenly, it’s a madhouse. Women are crying as they’re turned away from the door; others stand on tiptoes in the back or sit on the floor, happy just to catch a glimpse of their tiny idol whose voice barely registers above a whisper.

“There’s something weird going on with Joan Didion and women,” the faculty head declares, realising this sparrow of a woman doesn’t just have readers, she has fans. ...

Joan Didion was born on December 5, 1934, into a prominent family that had lived in Sacramento, California, for five generations. Her father, Frank, was in the Army Air Corps, and so the family was always on the move. Joan didn’t attend school regularly and skipped second grade altogether, but wrote ferociously in a notebook she said her mother, Eduene, had given her “with the sensible suggestion that I stop whining and learn to amuse

ABOVE Joan Didion while reporting on the hippie movement in San Francisco in 1967. RIGHT Didion and her journalist husband, John Gregory Dunne, in their home library in Malibu in 1972.

“THERE’S SOMETHING WEIRD GOING ON WITH JOAN DIDION AND WOMEN” – Head of English, UC Berkeley myself by writing down my thoughts”.

In the mid-’40s, the family – now complete with little brother Jim – moved back to Sacramento. As an adult, Joan would become famous for writing about California. Back then, though, she couldn’t wait to get out.

She won a guest-editorship at Mademoiselle magazine and moved to New York for the assignment. She then won an essay competition at Vogue, which landed her a job in the city that paid $45 a week. She worked there for nearly a decade, making a name for herself and maintaining her byline as her fame grew. In the evenings, she went to fabulous parties, freelanced for other magazines, and tried to write a novel. Her boyfriend introduced her

to the Time magazine journalist John Gregory Dunne as “the guy you ought to marry”, and so, in 1964 just before her 30th birthday, she did. “Out of the blue, he asked me to come [to visit his mother],” Didion recalled. “And the minute I got into this house of great calm and order and peace and wellbeing, I thought, I want to marry him.”

Desperately homesick for the flat horizons of California after so long in New York, Didion convinced Dunne to move back to LA with her. There, she wrote her two most famous essay collections, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album, making her name synonymous with the ’60s. She documented the era of rising crime rates and televised war,

marieclaire.com.au | 167

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Didion at home in

Hollywood in 1970; the prolific writer keeps portraits of her late husband and daughter throughout her New York apartment; the couple (in 1977) were married just shy of 40 years.

youth experimenting with sex and drugs, and cult members murdering celebrities. She wrote about the Doors (Jim Morrison flirted with her as she sat in on a recording session), the Black Panthers, Charles Manson, runaway children and cultural meltdown. Her writing intertwined Los Angeles’ madness with the madness she felt creeping inside her.

She was prone to migraines, drank a lot and relied on cigarettes. Breakfast was a can of ice-cold Coca-Cola and a tin of almonds consumed in silence behind dark sunglasses just before midday. She went blind in one eye for six weeks, and the doctors suspected she had multiple sclerosis.

Didion built a reputation as a “public pulse taker” and a keen “observer of the chaos”. She was a pioneer of the New Journalism, in which the reporter puts themselves at the centre of the story. In Slouching (now considered one of the most influential essay collections of the past 60 years), she immersed herself in the new hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury, spotting a five-year-old who was tripping on LSD. (“Let me tell you, it was gold,” she said later.) In The White Album, she wrote about the Manson murders and was unsettled that she and Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was killed, were godparents to the same child. She also spent time interviewing Linda Kasabian, the cult’s getaway driver and

168 | marieclaire.com.au

“SHE COULD MAKE DINNER FOR 40 PEOPLE WITH ONE HAND TIED AROUND HER BACK WHILE EVERYONE ELSE WAS PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR” – Eve Babitz lookout, who told her the Family had driven past Didion’s house, where the lights were on and the windows were open, on the night of the murders.

In 1966, as Didion’s career was taking off, she and Dunne adopted a baby girl, naming her Quintana Roo – or Q for short. They lived in an ocean-fronted house where peacocks roamed the grounds, and they threw parties for hundreds of guests, including Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Janis Joplin. “[Didion] could make dinner for 40 people with one hand tied around her back while everyone else was passed out on the floor,” remembered artist and writer Eve Babitz.

Q was also leading a charmed and strange existence. She grew up hearing the latest Fleetwood Mac albums before anyone else, and she went to school with Bob Dylan’s son Jesse, who eventually married her best friend.

“Quintana had no idea how much we needed her,” Didion would write of her daughter decades later in her book Blue Nights. “I needed her in the sense that she was … simply the center of my life. I needed someone to take care of.”

Didion and Dunne, with their best-selling books, prolific reporting and effortlessly glamorous lifestyle, were regarded as the golden couple of the American literary elite. They moved to Malibu and began writing Hollywood screenplays – and found they were good at it. The Panic in Needle Park, starring Al Pacino, was shown at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival; A Star Is Born won Barbra Streisand the Golden Globe award for best actress. (The 2018 remake nabbed five Oscar nominations.)

Didion was the more famous of the

L I F E S TO RY

LEFT Didion and Quintana Roo sharing a secret at home in Malibu in 1976. BELOW

GETTY IMAGES; COURTSEY OF NETFLIX; JENNIFER S.ALTMAN/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY; SHUTTERSTOCK; HENRY CLARKE/ CONDÉNAST/SHUTTERSTOCK; JOHN BRYSON/NETFLIX.

Didion receiving the National Humanities Medal from Barack Obama in 2012.

INSET The Céline S/S 2015 campaign.

two (people called them The Didions), but the couple were adamant there was no jealousy between them. “What was good for him was good for me; his success was my success, and vice versa,” Didion said. “[We were] terrifically, terribly dependent on one another.” Those close to the couple agreed. “They were like one person,” said Dunne’s brother Dominick.

In the ’70s and ’80s, Didion’s writing took on a political bent. She travelled to El Salvador on assignment to cover the civil war, arriving shortly after four journalists had been shot; she wrote about the Bush administration and the Iraq war. The family lived in a quiet residential neighbourhood at the time, but their lives were not as peaceful as their streets. Doctors had told Dunne that he was a “candidate for a cardiovascular catastrophe”, while Q was dealing with bipolar disorder (which Didion poetically referred to as her “depths and shallows, her quicksilver changes”) and alcoholism.

Tragedy struck on Christmas Eve 2003 when Quintana fell ill and slipped into a coma. Five nights later, after returning home from visiting her in the ICU, Dunne sat down at the dining table and had the heart attack they’d been dreading. “John was talking, then he wasn’t,” Didion wrote later. “The minute I got to him, I knew he was dead.” He was 71. Q recovered but died less than two years later from acute pancreatitis. She was 39.

In the brief period between her husband’s and daughter’s deaths, Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking as a way of processing the desperate, deranging sense of grief she felt after losing Dunne. “Nothing I read about grief seemed to exactly express the craziness of it,” she said. “The way

in which you obsessively go over the same scenes again and again and again trying to make them end differently.”

She wrote it in 88 days. It was like “sitting down at the typewriter and bleeding”, she said. “Some days I’d sit with tears streaming down my face.”

The Year of Magical Thinking won a National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, it was adapted into an internationally produced play, and therapists regularly recommend it as required reading for the recently bereaved. It helped Didion reach a new audience and a new generation of readers. Six years after Quintana died, Didion wrote the unofficial sequel, Blue Nights, about her daughter.

The cult of Joan Didion reached a new peak in the mid-2010s, and she

“[IT WAS LIKE] SITTING DOWN AT THE TYPEWRITER AND BLEEDING” – Joan Didion

became proof that an interest in fashion and politics needn’t be mutually exclusive in a woman.

Maybe it was because of her stylised book covers (think of her leaning against her bright yellow Corvette Stingray – smoking, disaffected, maybe even bored, on the cover of The White Album) that she was a muse for designers. In 2015, 81-yearold Didion became the sunglass-clad face of Céline’s S/S campaign, shot in her New York apartment by Juergen Teller. There was also a time when you could buy a $1200 leather jacket with an illustration of her face on the back.

Barack Obama awarded Didion the National Humanities Medal, and Harvard and Yale granted her honorary degrees. A campaign for (the only) official film about her life became the third-highest-funded documentary on Kickstarter in 2014.

The film, The Center Will Not Hold, was made by her nephew Griffin Dunne and grandniece Annabelle Dunne, perhaps the only people she trusted with her story.

The film of her 1996 book, The Last Thing He Wanted, premiered at Sundance Film Festival last year with Anne Hathaway in the lead, and her 1977 novel, A Book of Common Prayer, is in pre-production with Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks and Allison Janney attached. Now that she is 86, Didion’s new book of essays, Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection drawn from her astonishing fivedecade career, has connotations of a swan song. But given everything she’s been through, chances are Joan Didion is not done yet.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean, by Joan Didion (HarperCollins, $27.99).

LA ST WO RD

THE WOMEN WHO MADE ME

CLAUDIA KARVAN

The esteemed actor celebrates the women who encouraged her to live a creative and curious life

J U D Y D AV I S I was 14 when I got cast in the film High Tide, which starred Judy Davis as my mother. I was just a normal teenager who was, sadly, not watching a lot of Australian productions; I hadn’t seen My Brilliant Career, so I was completely ignorant to who Judy was and what sort of reputation she came with. I just took her at face value. During the entire filming process, I was so enthralled by her I found it painful to be away from her. I just relished her company so much: her stories, her sense of humour.

She would confide in me, and she’s really quite addictive to be around. All day on set was just utter pleasure for

170 | marieclaire.com.au

me, but it was work for her. I remember a moment when they called “Wrap!” and she yelled, “Woo hoo!” and went dancing across the paddock, skipping off set. I just looked at her, horrified, and thought, “How can she be so happy to leave?!” I couldn’t fathom it because I felt so miserable any time I had to part ways with her.

It’s funny, it’s almost like the relationship gets preserved; when I’m around Judy now, more than 30 years later, suddenly I’m that teenager again. I can’t present her a fully formed, mature woman because I just revert to that 14-year-old who’s totally in awe of her.

J A N M U R R AY My HSC English teacher, Jan Murray, was pint-sized. She was a very huggable figure with a mouth that was always a little turned up at the corners. She was one of those really special teachers: she managed to infect us with a love of literature but in such a calm, subtle and wise way. I always wanted to impress her. After I finished my first film, I suddenly understood that English – a love of language and being able to appreciate writing and character – is something that’s integral to performance.

There was some sort of work dilemma that happened in our final year and she left the school but she’d organise classes at her house. On the weekend, our English class would get on the train and walk to her home. The walls were just crammed with books, and we’d sit on the floor with the sun streaming in. It was a very peaceful, quiet, book-loving environment. It was so special because, despite whatever happened, she didn’t abandon us, she kept giving us tutelage until we finished the HSC. I still think of her often. She was just consistent; I can’t remember her being anything but calm, interested and always sort of mildly amused.

G A B R I E L L E K A R VA N One of my earliest memories of my mum is talcum-powdering her into her black Vivienne Westwood rubber punk suit. I can sort of understand why I became an actor, because she was very dramatic even though she had zero skills as a performer – she was once asked to be an extra and she fainted.

Everything, particularly people’s behaviour, is all significant and curious to my mum. She’s quite analytical, sexy, fun, playful and extremely good company. You can never predict what she’s going to say or think about something; she’s totally irreverent. She’s quite brave with her opinions – she doesn’t mind being a bit subversive.

Now that I’m a mum, I can look back and see how she shaped the way I conceptualise that role; watching her, I learnt how crucial it is to retain a sense of yourself and not just fall into playing the role of the mother. Not only that, but she’s also shown me the importance of needing to keep a connection to nature, returning to the country and enjoying conversations with your children. I try to see the humour in everything, thanks to my mum.

Karvan’s latest film, June Again, is out now.

AS TOLD TO COURTNEY THOMPSON; PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL NADEL/NEWSPIX.

“I TRY TO SEE THE HUMOUR IN EVERYTHING, THANKS TO MY MUM”

Working from home doesn’t have to be hard work Whether you’re working from home by design or necessity, Telstra Smart Modem gives you reliable home Wi-Fi, backed up by Australia’s best 4G network. So if the connection to your home stops, we’ll have you back online in minutes. And because reliable home Wi-Fi is more important than ever, Telstra Smart Modem is included on all Telstra home internet plans for new customers who stay connected for 24 months. Head to your local Telstra store where we have the right people committed to helping you connect to the right home internet plan.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW: Mobile backup is available to premises in 4G coverage areas. Check coverage at telstra.com/coverage.

Your mobile backup connection is capped at 25 Mbps for downloads and 2 Mbps for uploads. Actual speeds may be lower due to local conditions and content accessed.