It’s a widely known fact that Australians take their health and fitness seriously. You need only take a stroll down Bondi Beach to witness the buff and bronzed bodies attending yoga, Pilates, bootcamp, CrossFit, F45, and… you get the picture. Of course, that’s only a mere snapshot of fitness-obsessed Australia as a whole – now home to more beautiful yoga studios than we dare to count, we think Aussies are leading the charge when it comes to innovative design and serene spaces that look as good as they make you feel. Case in point: in the last 12 months alone a whole crop of uber-polished fitness and wellness centres have popped up in Sydney and Melbourne. With wellness, balance and a beautifully styled interior in mind, these four spaces might just be the future of fitness Down Under.

Pictured above: Warrior One

The Well
Bondi’s answer to a holistic health centre boasts a range of fitness classes, from reformer Pilates, Barre and boxing to personal training and yoga; as well as mind and body therapies like acupuncture, nutrition, massage and psychology. And when you’re finished working up a sweat, you can relax in the on-site café serving delicious, seasonal and plant-based food. With chic, minimalist interiors and a spot facing Sydney’s most famous shoreline, The Well is your one-stop fitness shop.

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78 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach, thewellbondi.com.au

Warrior One
Conceived by interior design practice Golden, this sleek and tranquil space houses two yoga rooms, a change room/bathroom and, later this year, its own café. Sticking to an interior scheme of white concrete walls, walnut-coloured cabinetry, exposed raw timber beams and pink marble in the bathroom; it also boasts a custom counter by local Melbourne stonemason Den Holm. Set up to complement its light-filled sister studio in Brighton, Warrior One’s chic interior has an immediately zen effect – which is all you could you ask for, really.

228 Beach Road, Mordialloc, warrioroneyoga.com.au

Paramount Recreation Club
Housed on the rooftop of the seriously cool Surry Hills stay Paramount House Hotel, this light and airy fitness centre is awash with stark white, grey and powdery blue tones. Framed by potted plants and a cacti-filled garden, there’s plenty of sunny outdoor space at this newly opened gym and recreation centre. With classes built around three fitness pillars of movement, strength and conditioning, this personalised, boutique approach is rolled out across the entire business.

The Rooftop, 80 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills, paramountrecreation.club

La Porte Wellness
Modelled after its much admired, aesthetically pleasing shared work spaces in Sydney’s Rosebery, La Porte Wellness is the latest on-brand addition to the group. Offering Pilates, yoga, meditation, nutrition and an infrared sauna, La Porte Wellness’ space is rendered in calming shades of white and timber, offset by wicker furniture, fiddle leaf fig plants and brass bathroom fittings. Abiding by the less is more approach, we can only assume the months-old centre will prove as popular as its studios, function space and office suites.

87-103 Epsom Road, Rosebery, laportespace.com.au

BodyMindLife, Kirrawee
With fitness studios located in Surry Hills, Bondi Beach, Potts Point and Redfern already, BodyMindLife has taken a well-earned break from servicing Sydney’s inner-city suburbs by opening a new studio in Kirrawee. The new Sutherland Shire location brings you the same combination of yoga, Pilates, meditation and infrared sauna therapy to choose from, with light-filled studios rendered in calming shades of white, with brushed concrete and raw timber floors. Catering to all your health and wellness needs, the Kirrawee space offers 75 yoga, reformer Pilates and meditation classes each week.

566-594 Princes Highway, Kirrawee, bodymindlife.com

Shelter, Double Bay
“Feels like a spa, works like a gym” is the ethos behind this luxury wellness space in upscale Double Bay. From the minute you step through the designer door into the soothing light-filled juicery at the front of gym, it feels like you have, indeed, escaped into a five-star health retreat. Offering a slew of wellness options including both infrared and traditional saunas, an ice bath, a juicery and of course, a spin studio to work up a sweat in, it really delivers on all health fronts. 

The space was transformed by Anna Trefely from Esoteriko and is a pleasure for the eyes and senses thanks to the natural Scandinavian-style colour palette, considered layout and inclusion of native Australian plants within the space.

A boxing studio is slated to be in the works, due to open in August 2019, providing yet another compelling reason to make Shelter your regular workout go-to.

3 Goldman Lane, Double Bay, the-shelter.com.au

One of the great American cities, San Diego is famous for abundant Southern California sunshine, upbeat outdoor living and dining, and of course, the Oscar-winning fighter pilot film, Top Gun (which has a sequel coming in 2020).

Home to one of America’s largest military bases, San Diego’s history and growth is tied to the men and women in uniform who call the city home. In the 1920’s, a grand Italian Renaissance-inspired building at 500 West Broadway (pictured below) became the Army-Navy YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association); it was a place where visiting servicemen could stay and where anyone in the army or navy could come to play sport and train. It became an much-loved destination for servicemen, with eight million visitors annually during its heyday. In 2007, the building was officially registered as a Historic Place by the U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service.

The ornate original entrance to the former YMCA has been meticulously restored.

Today, the beautiful building at 500 West Broadway serves a different purpose. The basketball court has been transformed into a soaring ballroom. The pool has become an event space, with carpet that mimics the flow of water (in a nod to its past). The landmark YMCA in downtown San Diego is now The Guild Hotel, luxuriously reimagined by designer and hospitality-space-whisperer, Sormeh Rienne.

Mirrors in the restaurant mimic the building’s heritage windows.

The Guild Hotel is home to a restaurant that is a destination in itself – Luca serves Mediterranean-inspired dishes in an al fresco setting, surrounded by the city skyline. Hotel guests and San Diego locals are all welcome to enjoy fresh breakfasts, lunches and dinners dished up by executive chef, Justin Vaiciunas.

Monochrome umbrellas and potted palms add a playful touch to the al fresco space.

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Bedrooms at The Guild are refined and minimalist with high ceilings and lots of natural light. Each room displays a unique piece of local art that helps tell the story of the building.

Bedrooms feature Stearns & Foster beds, Garnier-Thiebaut linens and leather headboards.

“San Diego has a unique, rich history and The Guild personifies that heritage with iconic spaces that are unlike any other hotel in the city,” says Rick Mansur, president and CEO of Azul Hospitality Group (The Guild’s parent company).

The Guild Bar has a Brazilian leathered quartzite counter and backbar with custom millwork detailing.

There’s no doubt about it – The Guild Hotel is the perfect place to relax with friends, food and a few of your favourite Top Gun quotes.

The lobby features a herringbone floor and hand-carved burgundy wood desk.

Visit: theguildhotel.com

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19th Jul 2019

The so-called royal Fab Four comprising brothers Prince William and Prince Harry and their wives, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, respectively are officially now two separate royal households.

Earlier this year it was announced that the royal brothers and their wives would be splitting their households after having shared and worked together within one household and on a joint charity, the Royal Foundation, previously. The household split involved every aspect including separating their social media accounts — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle no longer fall under the Kensington Palace social media umbrella having launched their own Instagram handle @sussexroyal — their staff and also their charitable organisation.

This split was speculated by some royal watchers as resulting from an issue between the brothers or even between the two duchesses, but as Prince William will be king one day and with both families having their own charity agendas the split appears to be the most sensible way to run a modern monarchy. It’s worth noting that the foursome have spent considerable time together recently enjoying days out at the polo and at Wimbledon, evidence that royal business is business and when it comes to family, they’re very close-knit.

According to People, when the palace issued a statement in June about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leaving the Royal Foundation to set up their own organisation the statement made a point of noting that it was for the reasons above that the split was occurring, stating that the new royal structure would “best complement the work and responsibilities of Their Royal Highnesses as they prepare for their future roles, and to better align their charitable activity with their new households.”

Overnight details have emerged as to what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new charity organisation will be, cementing the final element of the royal household split.

Royal reporter Emily Andrews posted a certificate of incorporation for the new charity to her Twitter account, which revealed the official name of the new charity — Sussex Royal The Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — along with other information about the charity including who the directors would be.

According to Andrews’s post, the four directors of “Sussex Royal” as the organisation is being called, will be Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, PR Sara Latham and Natalie Campbell, a former staffer at the Royal Foundation. 

Town & Country reports a palace source shared how excited the couple are about launching their own organisation with royal reporter Omid Scobie and the opportunity it presents to pursue their own works. “Their [Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s] operating style is very different to the Cambridges and so having their own space to think as big as they like, working on a global scale, is perfect for them.”

It’s not known as yet exactly which projects and causes the new foundation will take on but it’s expected to launch later this year. In the meantime, the couple will reportedly continue to work with Kate Middleton and Prince William on a number of joint initiatives, such as their mental health program, Heads Together. 

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19th Jul 2019

Scroll through the handbag section of luxury online shops and you’ll see a pattern of style names emerge—duffle, bowling, clutch and one that always seems misplaced: hobo. As fashion call-outs go, the hobo bag is complicated because in context the word is not necessarily derogatory and out of context it’s become so divorced from its meaning that most people don’t make the connection. 

“Hobo” was first used to describe migrant workers in America at the end of the 19th century, who were essentially homeless and rode freight trains looking for work, carrying their belongings in a sack tied around a bindle stick. It’s this marker that fashion borrowed to describe a slouchy bag with a handle. According to Tony Thorne, a specialist in slang, jargon and cultural history at King’s College, the first hobo bag was created in 1936 and retailed for 35 cents. 

“The argument cutting ‘hobo bag’ from the fashion canon is that it’s an expression with a long and authentic cultural history,” says fashion critic Luke Leitch. “Indeed, it has semi-heroic status.” George and Lennie, the much loved characters of John Steinbeck’s were hobos. Steinbeck wrote the novel during the Great Depression when millions were forced into the hobo lifestyle. According to Vice’s 2012 documentary , there are only a few thousand self-identified hobos left today, but the tradition is still celebrated annually in the small town of Britt, Iowa, at a convention attended by tourists and former or current hobos, two of whom are crowned the Hobo King and Queen. 

In the documentary, a railroad cop describes a hobo as a “tramp with a bag tied around his shoulder”. Despite its semi-heroic history, the contemporary understanding of the word is an impoverished, homeless person, hence hobo bag is tantamount to “homeless person bag”, which most people would never dream of saying. So why are we still using hobo to describe handbags sold for upwards of £1,000 (AU$1,775)? 

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Image credit: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

Mark Reay, a fashion photographer and model who walked for the likes of Versace, Moschino and Missoni and appeared in an episode of slept rough on rooftops in New York for six years. He had a real hobo bag that he once took to a Marc Jacobs after party—“full of warm clothes to later change into”—and, although he doesn’t find the term hobo offensive, he says: “The struggle of the homeless can’t be denied, and I do find it offensive that the fashion industry, one of the most wasteful industries ever, has exploited that.”

“It’s terrible to say, very often the most exciting outfits are from the poorest people,” Christian Lacroix once said. “Homeless chic” has been appropriated by fashion as recently as 2018, when Selfridges unveiled its winter window display featuring mannequins slumped against walls and lying face down on the floor wearing Balenciaga hoodies and trainers. John Galliano was called out for his millennium haute couture collection for Dior—at Versailles of all places—with its newspaper prints and jewellery made to look like rubbish, which, Galliano said, was inspired by the homeless people he jogged past in Paris. In 2010, Vivienne Westwood sent male models down the runway in frostbitten make-up carrying roll mats and pushing shopping trolleys. That same year, a homeless Chinese man with mental health problems nicknamed Brother Sharp was hailed a style icon after his photo was posted on a street style blog. 

You’d hope the brands could justify their creative vision. Balenciaga and Selfridges apologised for any offence caused, however, blamed the set designer and said it was supposed to look like people waiting at an airport, not sleeping on the streets. Galliano maintained he had designed from a position of respect and called his critics “bourgeois” and “condescending”; although he later conceded “I never wanted to make a spectacle of misery”. Leitch interviewed Westwood backstage after that 2010 show, and he reflects: “I don’t think she had really considered how it might appear from anyone’s perspective but her own. In fact afterwards, she said of homelessness: ‘The nearest I have come to it is going home and finding I don’t have my door key. I mean, what a disaster that is, dying to get in your house and you can’t. And what if it wasn’t there anymore?’” Referring to her husband and creative collaborator Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood added, “He just decided to style it homeless.”

Kimberly Jenkins, who specialises in sociocultural and historical influences on fashion at Parsons School of Design, says, “Some fashion designers feel that they can apply the ‘fashion treatment’ to things to ‘elevate’ and commodify them. And many aren’t very sympathetic to the people and conditions that produced those ‘looks’.”

Incidentally, Jenkins went to high school with supermodel Erin Wasson, who, when asked about her grunge style in a 2008 interview, echoed Lacroix’s sentiment: “The people with the best style are the people that are the poorest… when I go down to Venice beach and I see the homeless, like, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, they’re pulling out, like, crazy looks and they, like, pulled shit out of like garbage cans.’”

We are living in a time when words have become powerful signifiers. Gypsy skirts were inspired by Romany women, who view the word gypsy as a slur. Harem pants date back to sex workers in medieval Islamic society. A hobo is a person who has fallen on hard times and is living out of a bag. Like gypsy skirts and harem pants, the hobo bag needs a new name, at best because it has no place in the world of expensive handbags, at worst because of its complicity in the homeless chic appropriation, which further dehumanises a community already invisible to the masses. 

“Fashion is all about playing amorally with images and words are the same in that sense,” Thorne says. “I don’t think anybody ever thought terms like ‘homeless chic’ or ‘peasant chic’ were neutral or nice, they were using them to be ‘edgy’ and that edginess doesn’t sound good anymore.”

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19th Jul 2019

The 21st century has already given rise to some pretty significant social movements. But none as exciting and bursting with creativity and innovation as sustainability. We’re finally conceding to the notion that the planet can’t go on this way. Hopefully, just in the nick of time. And there are plenty of clever change-makers leading the charge. Farms are going vertical, robot bees have been sent out into flower fields to re-pollinate in an effort to compensate for dwindling bee numbers. You can get yourself a refillable water bottle that allows for UV light to penetrate the bottle and filter the water. Everybody’s favourite beach shoe – the thong – can now be made out of sugar cane, instead of rubber. And motoring is getting in on the action too.

By 2025, Volvo Cars has declared that at least 25 percent of the plastic in their cars will come from recycled material. To demonstrate the viability of the noble ambition, Volvo even made a demo version of the XC60 T8 plug-in hybrid SUV in which 170 parts were made with recycled material. That translates to 60kg of plastics that would otherwise go to waste, repurposed into a sleek new machine, ready for the road. Their plastic campaign doesn’t end there either. This global super company also doesn’t allow single-use plastics in their offices or at events they host. Saying yes or no to a straw as an individual can feel like a slow road to save the planet, but in this scale of International Corporation, the impact is massive.

Volvo and their Live Ocean Revival Experience at Bondi Icebergs as part of their Ocean Conversation iniatives.

Style leader, artist and mother-of-two Tash Sefton, who is a Volvo Ambassador, says she tries to make a growing number of her purchase decisions, better align with her philosophies. Both hers and the planets. “I’ve become very aware of the impact my family and I have on the world, and have been moving towards a responsible approach to my work and home life. Being a conscious consumer is now more important than ever,” she says. She keeps her busy life moving in a Volvo because it fulfils those growing principles. “I know my family and I are not only in safe hands, but the impact our car is having on the environment is considered. These cars are next-generation vehicles. Plastics are recycled, tested for strength and safety. They use only responsible leather, as well as offering leather-free options. It’s a luxury car that suits our lifestyle and ethics,” she adds.

Volvo and The Living Seawall at Milsons Point as part of their Ocean Conservation initiatives.

Volvo’s eco innovations are perhaps best displayed in Sefton’s home town of Sydney, in The Living Seawall. In collaboration with the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Reef Design Lab and North Sydney Council, Volvo Car Australia worked together to install a wall in June 2018. The tiles made of concrete, meant to mimic the root structure of a mangrove. The Living Seawall is a prototype, designed to encourage and support marine biodiversity and improve water quality. So far, the results are overwhelmingly promising. Six months after installation, 50 species have been observed amongst the tiles, positioned in Milsons Point. 

Of course, the easiest way to make a greener choice behind the wheel is with an electric vehicle. With a lower reliance on fossil fuels, electric cars emit zero exhaust emissions and are significantly cheaper to run. Volvo has been making hybrid vehicles since 1992 but are set to launch five fully electric vehicles between 2019 and 2021. They’re planning for 50 percent of sales to be fully electric by 2025, and have committed to putting one million electrified cars on the road by that year. Expect to see a corresponding increase in charging stations to meet those ever-growing demands. Since electric vehicles are far quieter, both on the road and inside the car, you’ll have to listen intently, but you can hear the future coming softly. 

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Right now, there are 10 million #bodypositive posts on Instagram. The concept is championed by everyone from Hollywood celebrities to reality TV stars and the wider online community. And it represents a welcome change.

This global re-evaluation of conventional beauty standards has grown in response to the same, narrow definition of physical perfection that has prevailed for too long. As consumers, we get it. We believe in exposing unconscious bias and being allowed to be ourselves. And that, really, should be the end of the story. But right now, three or so years since the whole movement blew up, its war cry is one that still stands, ubiquitous on social media yet still notably absent from the big campaigns.

It’s not that brands are staying completely quiet—far from it: there’s barely a beauty or wellness company out there that isn’t proclaiming to embrace physical diversity, celebrate women “of all shapes and sizes” and promote “body confidence”. But the trouble is, when it comes to translating this sentiment into the images they use and the models they work with, it seems as if, for now at least, that’s a step too far.

So, which brands are doing body positivity well?
Of course, there are exceptions. Glossier launched its body products in October 2017. The campaign was shot by US photographer Peggy Sirota and featured five women, each with very different physical attributes: from the toned to the curved to the heavily pregnant. Crucially, the thing you noticed first was the quality of the models’ skin: dewy, glistening, alive with health and vitality. It stopped the beauty industry in its tracks (and most of America, too, given that the campaign came to life in more than 350 larger-than-life ads in some of the highest-trafficked areas of Los Angeles and New York City, not to mention a full page in The New York Times, too).

Image credit: Peggy Sirota/Glossier

In March 2018, when Jules von Hep, the infamous celebrity self-tanner, launched his body-positive tanning brand Isle of Paradise, it felt as if it was the beginning of the end for conventional beauty imagery. Having spent his career listening to women apologise for their bodies as they stood before him naked, pre-tan, he felt compelled to create something based on “body positive energy”. His imagery features “real”, but more importantly, happy-looking women, each with a different body type—prompting one beauty editor to comment, “You can’t look at the campaign and not smile—what a welcome change for a beauty campaign, hey?”

Image credit: Courtesy Isle of Paradise

And there are other examples, too: Fenty, CoverGirl, Babor and Revlon have all worked with a more diverse roster of body shapes.

What are the body positive ambassadors saying?
Ashley Graham, who is part of Revlon’s Live Boldly collective of ambassadors (which also includes Adwoa Aboah and Gal Gadot), has said of the movement: “This should be the norm. I’m really hoping and striving that in the next 10 years we don’t even have to discuss this. Beauty is beyond size.”

10 years seems like a long wait, but it will be worth it for a real step change. The singer Lizzo, who many onlookers agree “won Glastonbury” this year with her incredible, sequinned, leotard-clad performance of songs, self-love affirmations and freestyle flute-playing, is a beacon of body positivity for the Instagram generation. (“I want you to go home tonight and look in the mirror and say ‘I love you, you are beautiful and you can do anything!’” she implored the audience.)

She has been vocal about her belief that while more diversity is undoubtedly a good thing, any brand doing a swift 180, overlooking decades of promoting narrow beauty ideals in the hope of jumping on the body positive bandwagon can expect to be met with cynicism before being congratulated. Brands, she says, “have spent decades telling people they weren’t good enough and selling them an ideal of beauty. All of a sudden you’re selling them self-love? People don’t know how to love themselves because they were trying to look like the motherfucker you were selling them!”

Image credit: Getty Images

It’s a feeling the model and co-author of a new book Mixed Feelings Naomi Shimada has also expressed. At 31, she has been a “normal size 14 person” for almost a decade. One of her biggest frustrations is brands who adopt a tokenistic attitude to body diversity, choosing extreme, banner-waving depictions of beauty rather than reflecting what she calls the “normal middle”. “Like why are the bigger bodies always nude?” she asks. “For so long, people would only want to photograph me nude. In fashion, they’d say they couldn’t get bigger sample sizes… but in beauty, it shouldn’t matter. I get so frustrated that bigger girls in campaigns are always either nude or tagged to a ‘sexy girl’ aesthetic. Why can’t bigger bodies just be beautiful?”

Shimada has also worked with Nike, which had its own moment of body positive controversy in June, when it launched a “plus-sized mannequin” in its London flagship. While many enthusiastically applauded the move, some called it out for presenting a mannequin that was “obese” and “cannot run”. Rihanna’s Fenty mannequin, on the other hand, launched just a few days later, gained almost universal approval simply because it was so normal. “Brands like Fenty know what’s up,” says Shimada.

Why are bigger brands slow on the body positive uptake?
The Nike moment in particular speaks to a murky muddle of unconscious bias that perhaps helps to explain what beauty brands are struggling with. It’s to do with the crossover between “beautiful” and “healthy”. Can you have one without the other? How does health relate to size in these days of #fitnotthin? The interplay between the concepts of health and beauty is shifting, and the beauty industry, that for so long has conformed to such a rigid set of physical ideals, is finding it difficult to navigate between the two.

Naomi Shimada. Image credit: Getty Images

Dove has wrestled with its place in the beauty industry—both celebrating and questioning it—since it launched its campaign for real beauty in 2004. But last month, the brand won a prestigious Cannes Lions award for its Project #ShowUs campaign, in which Dove collaborated with Getty Images and Amanda de Cadenet’s female-led photography platform GirlGaze to create a bank of 5,000 photographs of “real women”, photographed by women, all of which are now available for media and advertisers to use, free of charge. “We wanted to respond to the powerful insight that 70 per cent of women still don’t feel represented by the images they see every day,” says Dove global brand vice president Sophie Galvani.

Dove’s commitment is impressive, and is one of the few examples globally of a beauty company leading the change. So why aren’t more brands thinking visually about the images they portray? “I think it’s a big change that can be daunting to undertake,” says Galvani. Von Hep continues: “So many people warned me not to do the body positivity thing. I had arguments with friends, colleagues, retailers… I think there’s a real fear about taking a stance, doing things differently, even now.” Shimada agrees: “I think the fear is we’re going to switch it up and we’re going to scare people off. I would like to think we can move beyond that,” she says. “I want to believe in a world where we have more vision than that. I would like to see more commitment from the bigger brands at least.”

Is a more body positive beauty industry actually down to us as consumers?
Ultimately, though, it’s the job of beauty brands to sell products. How much longer before we stop accepting the imbalance and start voting with our cash instead? What strikes Galvani as odd about the reluctance of brands to offer a more inclusive representation of body image is that it actually appears to make good economic sense, too. “If brands or products were to use more diverse imagery, six in 10 of the women we surveyed globally say they would be more likely to buy them,” she says.

And then, just maybe, we should start thinking about a more body positive description of the products they’re selling, too. As much as we can applaud Glossier’s brilliant Body Hero campaign, it’s accompanied by a product called Body Hero Daily Perfecting Cream. Perfecting? Isn’t that exactly the language we’re trying to change? But, Glossier does make great products, and you can’t ignore the skin in those photos. Maybe we can sideline our moral indignation sometimes—after all, no body is perfect.

Image credit: Peggy Sirota/Glossier