I thought of it as the vessel that carried me through life, the thing that allowed me to chase dreams, hold the people I love, explore the world, and experience all the little moments that make a beautiful little life.

The trouble is, our bodies don’t use words when they get sick.

They write in whispers.

A lingering symptom.

A quiet ache.

A subtle change.

A feeling deep down that something isn't quite right.

We spend so much of our lives listening to everything around us that we sometimes forget to listen to the one thing that carries us through all of it. Ourselves.

But our bodies are remarkably patient.

They whisper for as long as they can before they have no choice but to raise their voice a little louder.

Mine had been trying to get my attention for a while.

A bowel disease. It changed the rhythm of ordinary days and reminded me of something we often forget. Health is not something we truly notice until it suddenly changes.

It is the invisible thread woven through every morning walk, every meal shared with people we love, every laugh, every hug, every quiet moment we are lucky enough to experience.

Breast cancer.

Before I tell you about that part of my story, I am a private person by nature. I've always believed that some parts of life are meant to be held close. That not every joy, heartbreak, or challenge needs to be shared with the world.

But some experiences become bigger than our personal instinct to stay quiet.

Because while this is my story, the reason I choose to share it is not about me. If my experience encourages just one person to book the appointment they've been putting off, investigate the symptom they've convinced themselves is nothing, or trust that quiet feeling that something isn't right, then sharing it becomes worth it.

Awareness matters.

Because our bodies are constantly communicating with us, and sometimes the smallest signs are the ones we need to pay the most attention to.

Early detection can change everything.

It changed everything for me.

It saved my life.

So let this be your gentle reminder.

Book the appointment.

Notice the change.

Ask the question.

The smallest moments are rarely small while we're living them. We only realise their weight when we almost lose the chance to have them again.

Your body has been carrying you since the day you arrived here.

So maybe it’s time to return the favour.

"Wait for the light."

Not because I'm trying to be difficult.

Because light changes everything.

The same room can feel cold at midday and sacred an hour before sunset. A face can transform with the smallest shift of a window. A photograph isn't made by the camera, it's made by the light that falls onto the person standing in front of it.

I've spent years chasing it.

Driving an extra twenty minutes because I know where the evening sun hits the hills just right. Asking someone to take one step to the left because I can see the light catching the edge of their cheekbone. Waiting for a cloud to move instead of forcing the moment.

I've learnt that light rewards patience.

And perhaps that's why I love photographing it so much.

It has slowly taught me how to live.

We spend so much of our lives trying to force everything. Yet the most beautiful photographs rarely come from force. They come from observation.

From waiting.

From trusting that the light will arrive.

Photography has made me realise that life works much the same way.

Some seasons are harsh. The light is overhead, unforgiving, revealing every flaw. Nothing feels soft. Nothing feels easy. We convince ourselves that this is how things will always be.

But the sun keeps moving.

It always does.

Eventually the shadows lengthen.

The light softens.

The same landscape that felt ordinary an hour ago suddenly glows with warmth. Nothing about the landscape changed.

Only the light did.

How often is that true of us?

The circumstances stay the same, yet one conversation, one opportunity, one moment of healing changes the way we see everything that came before it.

Light has also taught me that beauty doesn't always arrive loudly.

Sometimes it's a sliver of sunlight finding its way through a half-open curtain.

Sometimes it's the reflection bouncing off a white wall.

Sometimes it's the glow after rain.

As photographers, we're trained to notice these things. But I think they're lessons for everyone.

There is beauty everywhere.

Most of us are simply looking too fast.

I think that's why I sometimes don’t particularly like the pace of modern life. We're encouraged to consume moments rather than experience them. To document everything before we've even felt it.

Photography has done the opposite to me.

It has slowed me down.

It has taught me to stand still.

To notice.

To watch how the light changes across someone's face as they laugh. To appreciate the quiet in between conversations. To understand that the best moments usually aren't planned, they're simply noticed.

Maybe that's why I love natural light so much.

It asks nothing of me except presence.

No expensive setup.

No elaborate production.

Just the willingness to pay attention.

The older I get, the more I realise that's true beyond photography.

The people who bring light into your life rarely announce themselves.

Healing rarely arrives in one dramatic breakthrough.

Confidence doesn't appear overnight.

Joy isn't always loud.

Often it slips in quietly, almost unnoticed, until one day you realise you're standing somewhere brighter than you were before.

Perhaps that's why I've always been drawn to photographing light.

Not because it's beautiful, although it is.

But because it reminds me that darkness is never permanent.

The sun has never failed to rise.

Clouds have never stayed forever.

Even on the days when the sky is heavy, the light is still there. Hidden perhaps. Waiting. Patient.

Maybe we're not so different.

We all carry light.

Some days it pours out of us effortlessly.

Other days we have to trust it's still there, even if we can't yet see it.

And maybe that's the real job of a photographer.

Not simply to take pictures.

But to remind people that they have always been worthy of the light.

Beautiful people have always existed.

What's changed is access.

For most of human history, our worlds were small. We loved the people around us. We noticed attractive strangers from time to time, but they disappeared as quickly as they arrived. There were natural limits to temptation, comparison, and distraction.

Today, there are none.

Every morning we wake up and open an app that has one job: to keep us looking.

Looking at beautiful people.

Looking at exciting lives.

Looking at couples who seem happier than us.

Looking at bodies, holidays, homes, careers, and relationships that have been carefully selected, edited and filtered into perfection.

Not because they're real.

Because they perform well.

The algorithm doesn't reward honesty. It rewards attention.

And attention is one of the most valuable things we can give.

That's why I don't believe Instagram is dangerous because men can see beautiful women, or because women can see attractive men.

It's dangerous because it quietly teaches all of us that there is always someone else.

Someone funnier.

Someone more attractive.

Someone who appears easier.

Someone who doesn't have the history, the disagreements, the responsibilities or the ordinary moments that every real relationship eventually has.

We start comparing our reality with someone else's highlight reel.

And reality loses every time.

The irony is that most of what we envy isn't even real.

It's carefully cropped.

It's taken after dozens of photos.

It's colour graded.

It's edited.

Sometimes it's filtered.

Sometimes it's sponsored.

Sometimes the couple posting the perfect holiday barely spoke over dinner that night.

We forget that social media isn't life.

It's marketing.

Even our personal lives have become brands.

The danger isn't simply that we're exposed to attractive people. The danger is where our attention goes.

Relationships don't survive because two people never notice anyone else.

They survive because, despite everything competing for them, they continue choosing each other.

Choosing to ask how their day was.

Choosing to put the phone down.

Choosing to flirt with the person they're already in love with.

Choosing to laugh together.

Choosing to make each other feel seen.

Long-term love doesn't usually disappear in one dramatic moment.

It fades through neglect.

Not intentional neglect.

Just tiny moments where our attention is pulled somewhere else.

A few more minutes scrolling before bed.

Checking someone else's story instead of asking your partner about their day.

Sending your emotional energy into strangers while the person beside you slowly receives less of it.

Love is less about grand gestures than it is about repeated attention.

Attention is affection.

And today, attention is under constant attack.

Perhaps that's why relationships feel harder than ever.

Not because people have become less loyal.

Not because social media makes everyone unfaithful.

But because we are living through the first generation where our minds are asked to compete with an infinite stream of novelty.

The greatest act of love in 2026 might simply be presence.

To look across the dinner table instead of down at a screen.

To stop searching for what else is out there and become curious about the person sitting opposite you.

To remember that the best relationships aren't built by finding someone perfect.

They're built by continually rediscovering the person you've already chosen.

Because in a world designed to keep our eyes wandering, there is something quietly revolutionary about giving one person your full attention.

Maybe that's what love has always been.

Not the absence of options.

But the decision, every single day, that this one is more than enough.

As though our hearts had never been through something.

As though our bodies had never carried life, or lost it.

As though we had never sat beside hospital beds, buried the people who taught us how to love, held ourselves together in bathroom mirrors, or whispered, "I don't know how I'm going to get through this," before somehow getting through it anyway.

The world handed us a strange bargain.

You may live a full life, it said.

But don't let anyone see where it touched you.

So we become curators of our own disappearance.

We smooth away the lines that laughter carved into our faces.

We hide the scar beneath the swimsuit.

We dye away the silver that arrived after years of carrying invisible things.

We apologise for the softness around our stomachs, forgetting they once stretched to make room for another heartbeat.

We spend billions trying to erase the evidence that we have loved, grieved, survived and grown.

As though the highest compliment a woman can receive is that she looks untouched.

But untouched has never interested me.

Untouched is a flower that has never met the rain.

Untouched is a book that has never been opened.

Untouched is a home that has never echoed with laughter.

Untouched is a heart that has never risked loving.

It is preservation.

Not living.

The women who have stopped me in my tracks have never been the flawless ones.

They have been the women whose smiles arrived slowly, because they had to fight to find them again.

The women whose eyes held both joy and sorrow at the same time.

The women who had learnt that those two things often become lifelong companions.

They laughed a little louder.

Loved a little softer.

Listened a little longer.

Not because life had been easy.

Because it hadn't.

There is something almost holy about a woman who has every reason to become hard, but doesn't.

A woman who has buried someone they love and still answers the phone with warmth.

Who has loved someone she couldn't keep and still believes in love.

Who has watched her body become unfamiliar and still chooses to treat it with tenderness.

Who has walked through fear so quietly that the people around her never realised she was carrying it.

We call those women resilient.

But I wonder if resilience is too small a word.

Because resilience sounds like survival.

These women did more than survive.

They remained open.

And perhaps that is the bravest thing any of us will ever do.

We have been taught to admire perfection.

Perfect skin.

Perfect symmetry.

Perfect youth.

Perfect bodies.

Perfect lives arranged into perfect little squares on a screen.

Yet perfection has never made me cry.

Perfection has never made me stop scrolling and whisper, "I know that feeling."

Perfection is easy to admire from a distance.

It is much harder to love.

The faces I remember are the ones that carried stories.

The grandmother whose hands looked like pressed flowers after eighty years of loving people.

The mother who smiled through exhaustion because little eyes were watching.

The woman who tucked her scarf around a scar and walked into the world anyway.

The friend whose laugh returned after months of silence.

The stranger whose kindness told you she'd known suffering too.

Those are the faces that stay with me.

Not because they escaped life.

Because they allowed life to shape them without stealing who they were.

We rarely realise we're witnessing courage.

It doesn't always arrive in dramatic moments.

Sometimes courage is brushing your hair after weeks of not recognising yourself.

Sometimes it is showing up to dinner after grief convinced you to stay home.

Sometimes it is allowing yourself to be photographed when your body no longer feels like your own.

Sometimes it is falling in love again.

Sometimes it is simply believing there will be another spring.

I think about trees often.

Every ring inside their trunk marks another year they survived.

A drought.

A storm.

A harsh winter.

No one looks at an old tree and wishes it were a seed again.

We admire it because it endured.

Its beauty is found in its years.

Its strength is visible because of what it has weathered.

Only women are taught to apologise for surviving.

To wish ourselves backwards.

To mourn the girl we were before life happened.

But perhaps she was never the destination.

Perhaps she was simply the beginning.

Perhaps every heartbreak, every disappointment, every impossible season was carving us into someone she could never have imagined becoming.

Not prettier.

Not younger.

Not untouched.

Just deeper.

There is a quiet kind of beauty that only arrives after suffering.

It cannot be bought.

It cannot be injected.

It cannot be filtered or edited into existence.

It appears in the softness of someone who has every reason to be cynical.

In the patience of someone who has waited for better days.

In the gentleness of someone who understands that everyone is carrying something invisible.

That beauty doesn't fade with time.

It is created by it.

One day we'll stop searching for the woman we were before life found us.

We'll stop chasing twenty-year-old versions of ourselves through mirrors that cannot return them.

We'll stop believing that our worth lives in untouched skin or unbroken bodies.

Instead, we'll begin to notice something extraordinary.

The scar that reminds us we healed.

The line beside our eyes that proves we laughed enough for it to stay.

The hands that held children, parents, lovers and friends through the hardest days of their lives.

The body that carried us through every season, even the ones we thought would finish us.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll realise that none of those things ever made us less beautiful.

They were beauty.

Because beauty was never the absence of pain.

It was always the decision to keep choosing love after it.

To keep choosing hope after disappointment.

To keep choosing softness in a world that rewards armour.

We spend our lives trying to look like women who have never been broken.

When all along, the women who change us...

The women we remember...

The women we become...

Are the ones who were broken but open.

And chose to let the light, the love, and the life they fought so hard to keep, shine through the cracks.

It felt less like an awards ceremony and more like a reunion.

As the sun disappeared over Auckland's waterfront, Park Hyatt transformed into a room filled with some of the country's most creative minds. Black tie, champagne, candlelight and incredible fashion set the scene, but what made the evening memorable wasn't just how beautiful it looked, it was the people inside it.

Fashion can often appear glamorous from the outside, but anyone working in the industry knows it's built on long days, late nights, resilience and relationships.

Behind every collection is a team. Behind every campaign is a network of creatives. Behind every brand is someone quietly making it all happen.

For one evening, those people were the ones being celebrated.

Of course, there were beautiful details everywhere you looked. Guests arrived to champagne, cocktails and canapés before settling into an elegant dinner overlooking the harbour. A violin string filled the room with music while conversations flowed between courses, and every corner had been thoughtfully designed to create a night that felt effortlessly luxurious.

But the most beautiful part wasn't the styling.

It was witnessing an industry choose collaboration over competition.

There was genuine excitement as winners were announced, heartfelt applause from peers and mentors, and a sense that everyone in the room understood just how much work had gone into reaching that stage. Whether someone walked away with an award or not almost felt secondary. Simply being surrounded by so much creativity was inspiring enough.

The public's overwhelming support for Juliette Hogan in the People's Choice Award was a reminder that New Zealanders continue to champion local design. The introduction of new honours recognising lasting contributions to the industry also felt particularly meaningful, acknowledging that fashion isn't only about what's next, it's also about recognising the people who have quietly shaped where we are today.

As the formalities wrapped up, the energy shifted. Champagne glasses were topped up, conversations lingered and nobody seemed ready for the evening to end.

And perhaps that's because nights like this don't happen often.

Bringing together around 200 people who have collectively influenced New Zealand fashion is something worth celebrating in itself. In a world where we're constantly connected through screens, there's still nothing quite like sharing the same room, exchanging ideas, celebrating each other's wins and remembering why this industry continues to evolve.

The FQ Fashion Awards wasn't just about recognising excellence. It was a reminder that fashion has always been, and always will be, about people.

And if this year's room was anything to go by, the future of New Zealand fashion is in very good hands.

A big congratulations to team FQ for making a night to celebrate the success of what the New Zealand fashion industry continues to offer.

Images by Ruby Hamilton

The goal isn't to force concentration or "clear your mind." Instead, the mantra helps your mind naturally settle into quieter states of awareness, often leading to a deeply restful state while remaining awake.

Vedic Meditation. It’s a dead-simple practice

• you do it twice a day, for 20 minutes each session

• you sit down anywhere you can be somewhat comfortable and close your eyes

• you relax yourself by breathing deeply a few times

• you repeat a mantra (one short word that doesn’t have an English meaning) silently in your mind. Any time other thoughts come up, gently and non-judgmentally guide your mind back to the mantra.

• be totally ok and neutral with whatever your mind is doing during the twenty minutes

For as simple as it is, it is just as effective. From the first time I did it, I felt super relaxed after the session, and well into the rest of my day. I found that unlike other forms of meditation I’d tried over the years

By the second and third times I did it, I experienced what practitioners call “transcendence” which I can best describe as that really cool feeling you get between laying down to sleep and actually being asleep but it lasts for about 20 minutes! It doesn’t happen every time and that’s not the goal. But when it does, it’s really nice.

The only goal during a session of Vedic meditation is to allow your body to relax as deeply as possible.

R - e - l - a - x

I spoke to Georgia Vavasour a kiwi from Auckland, New Zealand specialising in the practice of Vedic Meditation.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your practice?

I spent 12 years in the insurance industry in Australia & London and after years of depression, health issues, a divorce and a bout of bowel cancer in 2013, in search of feeling better physically and mentally, I came across Vedic Meditation while living in Sydney.

Within a few months it had changed my life, and the way I felt to such a degree I became inspired to go and train to teach it to others. I spent several months in the foothills of the Himalayas in India learning with the Masters of this technique, immersed in intensive meditation and Vedic study, and have been teaching this full time in NZ and other parts of the world since early 2017. I'm passionate not only about teaching meditation, but about giving people both the means to effect change in their lives and the understanding that it's possible.

Explain to us what Vedic Meditation is and how do you practice it?

Vedic Meditation is an effortless mental technique that uses a particular type of mantra (mantra means, literally, 'mind vehicle'), thought quietly on the inside, to allow the mind to step beyond the active layer of thought and to experience the source of thought.  This is deeply restful to the body (2-5x deeper than sleep), which allows stress to be released at an accelerated rate and produces profound physiological changes as a result of this deep rest.  It's practised for 20 minutes twice a day, sitting in a relaxed, comfortable position.  Most people who come and learn do not have a regular meditation practice, but are able to integrate the practice as a result of how they feel from practising it, which is self-motivating.

Whats the history of Vedic mediation and how did you come across it initially?

Vedic Meditation comes from the 'Veda' - an ancient body of wisdom preserved in India, though it is universal in nature.  It describes how consciousness expands and brought out the wisdom of yoga & meditation.  This practice comes via a 5000 year old tradition of enlightened Masters and descriptions of it being practised date back over 5000 years. I learned it in Sydney, where it's highly popular, and went on to train to become a teacher of it, and continue to advance my knowledge, in India.

Do you think this is a powerful tool for people suffering from anxiety or panic disorders?

Absolutely.  I teach people with anxiety every week and they regularly describe how deeply calm they feel and are less affected by their anxiety, sometimes within days of practise.  Often with anxiety the body has developed a habit of sustained fight or flight, or the stress response.  It needs to be trained out of this and back into the natural state of 'stay and play' (and its associated bliss chemistry) which happens when one is switching the body back into this state with a regular meditation practice.  It can be challenging to 'talk' yourself into this state, it's best experienced physiologically.  Vedic Meditation is particularly powerful because of the rest state achieved and the rapid de-excitation of the nervous system triggered by the mantra's ability to take the mind to those subtle states beyond the active layer of thought.  It can be practised when one is stressed or anxious, which is important as the effects of meditation are cumulative, and often people report they have struggled to sustain other practices when stressed.

How important is it to you to stay In tune with your mental health and these sorts of practices?

How we experience the world is the baseline of our life. There are actually no stressful events, stress is a response to a change in expectation or a demand, an event may cause a stress response which lasts for days, weeks or months, for one person, where someone else simply adapts and continues to interact successfully with life's demands.  Life is not meant to be lived in a stressed, rushed state, there is very little living in that. That's literally, on a mental and physiological level, merely survival.  If we want to truly live, then we must prioritise our baseline state of experience.  To me, it's essential, but also effortless - I brush my teeth twice a day, I shower, I eat, I meditate twice a day.

Where can we find you to book in a session?

I run free introductory talks online and in Auckland weekly - check out https://www.gvmeditation.com/upcoming-courses to learn more,

or follow me on instagram for updates @gvmeditation.com

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisation, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.

There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

By Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Neither is true.

The reality is much less dramatic and, unfortunately, much more spreadsheet shaped in my humble opinion.

New Zealand fashion isn't struggling because our designers aren't talented. If anything, we've produced an absurd number of designers capable of holding their own on the world stage. We have beautiful tailoring, innovative knitwear, clever sustainability stories and enough black clothing to convince visitors we're all permanently attending an art gallery opening.

The problem isn't taste.

It's arithmetic.

Running a fashion label in New Zealand is a little like opening a Michelin-star restaurant in a town with one street. You might make incredible food, but eventually you realise you've already served everyone three times.

Our entire population is roughly the size of a medium-sized international city. That's wonderful for avoiding traffic (most of the time) but less wonderful when you're trying to sell thousands of $500 coats.

Fashion businesses have an annoying habit of charging you the same expenses regardless of how many customers you have. Rent doesn't become cheaper because you live in Auckland. Fabric mills don't offer a sympathy discount because your production run is 80 pieces instead of 8,000. Freight companies have somehow managed to avoid developing compassion altogether.

Small market.

Big costs.

Awkward combination.

Then there's geography.

Every New Zealand business owner has experienced the uniquely humbling moment of discovering that shipping a jacket overseas can cost almost as much as buying one.

We're a long way from everywhere, which is charming when you're advertising pristine landscapes to tourists, but considerably less charming when you're trying to convince someone in London to wait two weeks for a parcel while paying international shipping.

Meanwhile, fast fashion is operating on what appears to be completely different laws of physics.

Somehow a retailer can manufacture a dress, photograph it, market it, ship it across the world and still sell it for less than the cost of lunch in Ponsonby.

Independent designers look at those prices the way homeowners look at twenty year-olds buying investment properties: deeply confused.

Of course, local designers aren't really competing on price.

Or at least, they shouldn't be.

Nobody buys a beautifully constructed New Zealand made wool coat because it's the cheapest option. They buy it because it lasts longer than the average political promise, was made by people earning real wages and probably won't fall apart after three enthusiastic washes.

That's a different value proposition.

The challenge is convincing enough people that quality is worth paying for in an economy where everyone's mortgage has suddenly become a personality trait.

Thankfully, there are reasons to be optimistic.

The internet has quietly become the great equaliser.

Twenty years ago, cracking overseas markets required trade shows, wholesale agents and an expense account capable of causing mild panic from listening to my fathers experiences.

Today, one viral TikTok can introduce a Wellington designer to customers in Copenhagen, Seoul and Los Angeles before lunchtime. Shopify has become the new flagship store. Instagram is the new shop window. Your best salesperson might be someone you've never met filming a "Get Ready With Me" video in Berlin.

That's not to say it's easy.

Running an independent fashion label in 2026 requires you to be simultaneously a designer, accountant, logistics manager, content creator, customer service representative and occasional therapist.

You're expected to understand cash flow, tariffs, Meta advertising, inventory forecasting and why your email marketing open rate suddenly dropped 6%.

At some point you also have to design.

The brands surviving this environment have something in common.

They're less obsessed with growth for growth's sake and more interested in building businesses that can survive awkward economic years. They make smaller collections. They produce less waste. They know their customers by name instead of demographic category. They're building communities, not just wardrobes.

Ironically, that may become New Zealand fashion's greatest competitive advantage.

While much of the global industry is still chasing scale at any cost, our best brands are getting exceptionally good at being intentionally small.

Maybe that's the future.

Not becoming the next global fashion empire.

Just becoming the company that customers trust enough to buy from again next winter.

Because New Zealand fashion has never been short on creativity.

It's just been trying to solve a business equation with a calculator that occasionally runs out of batteries.

For me, that moment arrived courtesy of my trusty pair of jandals. ( in New Zealand we call thongs/flip flops jandals if you got lost for a minute there ).

Now, before anyone starts writing strongly worded emails, this isn't a jandal hate campaign. Jandals have carried us through beach days, supermarket dashes, camping trips, and countless "I'll just pop out for milk" missions. They have served us well.

But fashion has quietly moved on.

The humble flip flop has had a glow-up, and suddenly the cool girls aren't wearing the flimsy rubber pair that slap dramatically down the footpath anymore. They're wearing elevated versions that somehow make a linen set, oversized shirt, or vintage denim look like they belong on a European holiday even if they're actually just heading to Farro fresh.

Minimal. Sleek. Slightly expensive-looking. Effortless in that "I definitely didn't spend three hours thinking about this outfit" kind of way.

The New Flip Flop Hierarchy

The classic black rubber jandal still has its place. We will always secretly love it. Mainly at the beach. Or the public pool. Or when you're washing the dog.

But if you're aiming for "fashion editor grabbing a double espresso" instead of "mum who forgot shoes for the school run," there are a few styles worth considering.

The Leather Flip Flop

Think soft leather, slim straps, clean lines. The kind of sandal that whispers quiet luxury instead of shouting $12 from the petrol station.

They work with everything:

• Wide-leg linen pants

• Relaxed denim

• Slip dresses

• Tailored shorts

• Basically anything beige (which apparently is still a personality trait)

MASSIMO DUTTI

The Chunky Sole

If you like a little height without committing to an actual heel, chunky flip flops are your friend.

They're giving "I'm cool but I also value arch support."

We love a multifaceted woman.

BOTTEGA

GANNI

The Square Toe

A tiny detail that somehow makes the whole outfit feel intentional.

It's amazing what one ninety-degree angle can do for your confidence.

A.EMERY

Yes, They're Still Flip Flops

Let's not pretend we've suddenly become the type of people who only holiday in the Amalfi Coast.

They're still flip flops.

They still make that noise.

You'll probably still end up wearing them to take the bins out.

The difference is that now, if someone bumps into you while you're doing it, they'll think you've got excellent taste.

The Styling Trick

The secret isn't actually the shoes.

It's the outfit around them.

Try Adding:

• an oversized white shirt

• good sunglasses

• relaxed trousers or vintage denim

• gold jewellery

• a tote that's seen better days but in a chic way

Suddenly the flip flops aren't an afterthought.

They're the whole vibe.

My Holiday Challenge

If you've been reaching automatically for the same old jandals every time the temperature climbs above 22 degrees, consider this your permission slip to branch out.

Not because you have to.

Not because trends say so.

But because sometimes swapping one tiny thing in your wardrobe changes how everything else feels.

Your feet deserve a little main character energy.

The old jandals can stay by the back door for beach missions and gardening.

But this summer?

We're giving our footwear a promotion.

Less "I've given up."

More "I have excellent taste, and yes, these are technically still flip flops."

Taylah Kereama has taken the fashion industry by storm on the international arena posing for underwear powerhouse brand Victorias Secret and has established an international career all while being comfortable in her own skin. Taylah spoke to me about her journey to self love and the challenges she faced while first stepping into the fashion industry as a model.

The journey to self-love doesn’t happen overnight, though I bet you wish it did. Sadly, society has this sadistic way of having an impressionable impact on the idealisms of the female body and ladies we will never win because perfection is unachievable. Which is why I say, fuck whatever anyone else thinks of you, screw those idealisms and please for the love of god, stop starving yourselves.

I’m no expert in this topic but in my 27 years of life, I feel like I’ve experienced it all. Why I say this is that I’ve experienced self-hatred, self-love, been criticised internationally for my appearance and now, have a career based on the way I look. At one point in my life I was living off 600 calories a day and still thought I was fat. Hell, I didn’t look at myself in the mirror for 5 months. I thought that to be pretty, for guys to like me and to be happy, I had to have a thigh gap and be a size 8. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having those things if that’s your natural body type but for my body, at 6’1 and a healthy size 14, it just isn’t realistic. The day that I stopped comparing myself to others, accepting my body for the way it is and what it can do for me, was one of the most freeing.

I always wanted to work in the entertainment industry but from seeing the models on Instagram/magazines and actresses on TV, they usually had one thing in common, they were thin. I remember going into a meeting at an agency and they told me to just be ‘lean’. I took that as running daily and having protein shakes for lunch at school. If I think about it now, I’d never have been ‘lean’ enough, you’d have to shave off my hips for me to be a sample size. Then the world of plus size was introduced to me. I started my modelling career in New Zealand with my mother agent. From the beginning they were supportive and wanted me to embrace my body.

Unfortunately, plus size wasn’t really a thing in New Zealand at that time years ago especially as an inbetweenie which is a term given to those that are too big for the sample size of 6-10 and to small to be a true plus size at a size 16-22. I remember being asked by one of the biggest modelling agencies in the world to become a size 22 if I wanted work with them, I was a size 12 at the time; as you can imagine, I said no.

It took 2 years and a photoshoot with the incredible photographer David Shields to get any momentum. That time in my early career was rocky because I’d go to some shoots and nothing would fit me, it’d all be a size 10 and at others, I could see them shaking their heads because I looked ‘to small’ in their clothes. I couldn’t win but even with the pressure to change, I was firm on not starving myself or overeating to fit into a standard that an industry wanted me to be.

Years on now and a full-time model in internationally, I can say I’m incredibly lucky to have a career at my natural healthy size.

I think one of the reasons I’ve been able to maintain a career is because I do have such love and respect for my body and the fact that society is very slowly (and I’m going to emphasise the slowly part) accepting the fact that health and beauty comes in all different shapes and sizes. I’ve learnt over time to love what I once thought were flaws because I found beauty in that we call ‘imperfections’ and when you strip away physical appearance you can begin to love your body for what it does for you. My body allows me to breathe, to walk and run and enjoy life. So next time you feel like you want to pick yourself apart, find grace and thank your body for everything it does for you and baby, work with what you got! This is our only body we have in this life, no point in wanting another one.

Trust me, when you stop comparing yourself to others and letting society impact the way you think about yourself, you would be so surprised at the limitations we put on ourselves and mental consumption it takes when thinking about our appearance. I don’t know about you, but I have more important things to think about.

Photography Willem Jaspert

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