LOST ROMANCE BY JAMIE HEATH, ADY NESHODA AND ISABELLE TRUMAN
‘90s nostalgia is more prominent than ever. But, more often than not, rewatching the rom-coms that permeated our culture in our most formative years leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Stories matter—and the way they’re told and who’s telling them influences our society more than we realise.
A BROKEN SYSTEM BY ISABELLE TRUMAN
If a young woman isn’t safe in the very building created to house those entrusted to keep young women like her safe, it’s clear there’s a huge systemic problem. Now that Brittany Higgins has opened up the Me Too conversation in Australia, where do we go from here?
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Gretta Ray
To call Gretta Ray’s career charmed would do a disservice to the years of effort she has exerted in pursuit of her goal. But magic? Well, there’s a certain dose of that present, a dash of pixie dust she carries around on her shoulder and let’s find its way into every encounter.
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Chanel Contos
Chanel Contos is taking on Australia’s antiquated approach to consent education—and winning. Side-Note catches up with a true woman of note.
EN ARRIÈRE, EN AVANT- A PROJECT WITH THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET AND CHANEL
With exclusive access to the company’s archives—established with the assistance of Chanel—Side-Note and Darren McDonald travel through the last six decades of The Australian Ballet.
PAS DE DEUX – A PROJECT WITH CHANEL BY DARREN MCDONALD AND GRACE O’NEILL
In celebration of Chanel’s living heritage partnership with the Australian Ballet, Side-Note joins forces with prima ballerina Amber Scott and photographer Darren McDonald.
WINEDARK – A PROJECT WITH SARAH & SEBASTIAN BY JAKE TERREY AND KIDS OF BILL
In the uncertainty of today’s world, strength comes from even the smallest of corners. Samantha Wong talks to Sarah Munro, Creative Director of Sarah & Sebastian, about the driving force of strength behind the brand’s latest collection, Odyssey.
LIP SERVICE – A PROJECT WITH CHANEL BEAUTY BY JAKE TERREY AND HARRY GLASSBOROW
Rich, radiant, plumping and pigmented - CHANEL launches 20 new signature shades. Gabriella Brooks road tests the colours of Rouge Coco Bloom in Lip Service, a beauty story.
WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE BY ISABELLE TRUMAN
When it comes to the way we view and respond to cases of violence against women, our response is overwhelmingly influenced by the way the story is told to us through media and the language used to describe the occurrence. For too long, words have discretely shifted the blame from the perpetrator onto the victim. But used correctly, words can be a political force.
RETURN TO COUNTRY BY CHARLEE FRASER AND NICOLE BENTLEY
Model and First Nation Fashion + Design ambassador Charlee Fraser discusses her poignant, transformative journey of cultural discovery.
MALLORCAN YOUTH CULTURE BY BEN MORRIS
Ben Morris documents Mallorcan youth culture, exploring with Nina Cohen, what it is like growing up in and being in that stage of life where all ideas are exciting and possibilities are endless, on an island with such a schizophrenic personality.
SEX, LIES, AND RED TAPE BY GRACE O’NEILL
Instagram’s increasingly strict “community guidelines” have been slowly pushing sex workers and sex educators off its platform. It’s the latest Silicon Valley scandal to call into question who gets to decide which voices we see and hear online.
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Gabrielle Penfold in partnership with Emma Lewisham
A modern woman in many ways (Penfold’s break, and subsequent momentum has been helped along by social media), the 27 year old is quick to affirm her reverence for tradition, preferring to sell her work by way of galleries rather than DM’s. Instagram has proved a seminal and ongoing asset to her commercial success, and yet, Penfold is adamant “I don’t want to be an influencer, I want to be an artist.”
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Nathalie Morris and Carlos Sanson Jr
When we catch Nathalie Morris and Carlos Sanson—breakout stars of the breakout Australian dramedy Bump—they’re on the Pacific Highway, headed back from a four-day short film shoot on New South Wales’ South Coast. In person, the pair mirror the same easy chemistry that has made Bump such a blockbuster success. The series—a Stan original created by Australian TV veteran Claudia Karvan—broke viewing records within days of its January release. It was quickly renewed for a second season. The story hinges around a ‘will-they won’t-they’ love story between teenagers Oly and Santi (Morris and Sanson), who are in their final year of high school when their lives are upended by Oly’s cryptic pregnant—a phenomena in which women don’t know they are pregnant until they give birth.
WHAT GOES AROUND – A PROJECT WITH THE DAILY EDITED BY DANIEL GOODE AND JAMES CAMPBELL
This week, the Daily Edited launched it’s first recycled nylon collection – the five piece capsule is the brands first foray into recycled fabrications.
INSIDE OUT BY ED TRIGLONE, ISAAC BROWN AND ISABELLE TRUMAN
You can’t start a fashion label anymore without the question of sustainability arising. But Maggie Hewitt, founder of Maggie Marilyn, doesn’t think doing the bare minimum is enough. In fact, she thinks it’s unsustainable in the true essence of the word. Breaking away from the wholesalers who helped to skyrocket her brand to the international success it now has, Hewitt is forging her own path - a path towards a truly sustainable future for all.
THE SPACE BETWEEN BY LEVON BAIRD AND JORDAN WATTON
“... please tell
us where the slope inclines and can be climbed;
for he who best discerns the worth of time
is most distressed whenever time is lost.”
JUST KIDS BY DAN ROBERTS AND HENRY COUSINS
Thanks to the internet, Generation Z is more socially and politically aware than any who came before them, spearheading activist movements and creating real, tangible change before they’re even able to vote. But when they were already being dealt an unfair hand, - managing Trump, a climate crisis and puberty all at the same time - the addition of a global pandemic would be almost comical, if it wasn’t so terrifying.
ISLAND IN THE SUN BY DANIEL GOODE
Two days before Christmas, when the tease of summer was upon us, we took a small crew of creatives and Chanel's Cruise 2021 collection to South Cronulla beach to capture what we hoped would be the essence of a time year that now seems too often sentimentalised. We are so very lucky that on this island in the sun, 2021 is already bright - creative pursuit is possible, and across a plethora of industries, abundant. Daniel Goode captures Australian model Georgia Fowler in the clothes we want most.
PHYSICAL BY JAKE TERREY
A series that documents tension - the consideration of the physical and the case of the chemical. Suppression and release, friction and flow.
REPOSE BY CLAUDIA SMITH
Stillness is a virtue
A shapeless thing that hums Beneath the surface of being Momentarily punctuating time
STAND FOR SOMETHING – ZIGGY RAMO BY VANESSA SWEDÉRUS, RHYS RIPPER AND GRACE O’NEILL
Ziggy Ramo recorded his year-defining album, Black Thoughts, in 2015 — but he held on to it for five years, told by the music industry that an Australian public so in denial about their own racist past (and present) couldn’t handle its contents. On May 25th, as a global race reckoning began to take shape, he uploaded the album in full —it’s gone on to be dubbed the most important Australian album of 2020. Grace O'Neill spends an hour in conversation with the magnanimous rapper.
THE SOCIAL DILEMMA – YAN YAN CHAN BY PIERRE TOUSSAINT & GRACE O’NEILL
Social media gets a bad rap these days. Justifiably so, for anyone who has seen The Social Dilemma and then fallen into a dark hole of existential despair, convinced Facebook is slowly melting our minds and chipping away at the foundations of modern democracy. But our ‘social media = bad’ conversations tend to lack a little nuance. Grace O'Neill talks to Sydney Creative and Digital Influencer, Yan Yan Chan on the evolving dynamic that is social media.
SUMMER BY THE SEA – A PROJECT WITH OROTON BY JAKE TERREY
Subtly nostalgic and artfully modern, 'Summer By The Sea' celebrates the season we do best. From the discipline we’ve demonstrated to the reward that awaits; we count down to everything that warmer weather brings.
THE LOST ART OF DIALOGUE BY GRACE O’NEILL
I still believe that the only way to real progress is to effectively out-argue the people we disagree with; I believe that treating straight white men as if they’re ‘the enemy’ is childish and unhelpful and I believe that many complicated social issues have been reduced to opaque good/bad binaries, and that this is driving people further along the extremes of the political spectrum. Grace O'Neill considers American politics, now.
HOUND OF LOVE BY PETER VAN ALPHEN AND VICTORIA PEARSON
If you, like us, have found yourself in this cesspool of a year exploring some ways in which you can be doing good, or doing more, allow us direct your attention to greyhound rescue and advocacy.
TREADING LIGHTLY – A PROJECT WITH SUPERGA BY PETER VAN ALPHEN AND DANIELLE PAYNE
In partnership with Superga, SIDE-NOTE presents, ‘Treading Lightly’, a project that honours life's simpler pleasures, the essence of togetherness and the pursuit of a greater respect for our natural environment.
STATELESS BY NADINE VON COHEN
Imagine you’re a pregnant refugee with chronic pain and little to no English. You’ve spent the last seven years in a prison camp and all you know of Australia is the inside of a detention centre. Writer and refugee advocate, Nadine Von Cohen documents who she's fighting for.
FOR BEIRUT – لبيروت BY GEORGES ANTONI
When SIDE-NOTE began our portfolio of seven Lebanese-Australian creatives in the aftermath of the disaster, the overwhelming response during our interviews was this: The people of Lebanon are resilient.
HOME GROWN BY KELLY GEDDES AND LAURA AGNEW
“Prosperity is not a thing to grab, but an idea to cultivate; a mindset and a way of life”, Laura Agnew maps her path to Permaculture.