EDITOR’S LETTER
Almost two decades ago, as a freelance writer living in London, I travelled to Australia to produce features for a British interiors publication. Working with legendary photographer Geoff Lung, we shot the Sydney home of gallerist Sarah Cottier and her husband, Ashley Barber, also a photographer. Geoff and I were captivated by the couple’s young daughter, Ruby, and took several portraits. One of those, of Ruby peering cheekily from behind a hot pink gerbera flower, made it to the cover of the esteemed British magazine. There’s a lovely continuity in the fact that these days Ruby Barber is a successful florist, based in Berlin and profiled in this issue (page 89). I like to think that gerbera was a portent of things to come. There’s similar serendipity in Jason Mowen’s profile of the late photographer and designer Willy Rizzo (page 75). Mowen recalls that his own great-grandparents had furniture by Rizzo in their European home, but it was several decades before he realised the significance of its provenance. Writing about Rizzo’s glamorously eventful career was, for Mowen, a “vivid remembrance of a pivotal moment in my own life, when I knew that travel and creative discovery beckoned”. I always maintain that while Vogue Living may be global in its outlook, the magazine’s heart remains truly Australian. Nowhere is that more evident than in the focus on one of our most enduring and popular brands, Mud Australia (page 93). I love founder Shelley Simpson’s honesty: “I’ve had to make a lot of mistakes to learn, but no one’s ever told me not to do it the way I do.” And while Collette Dinnigan might have (temporarily, we hope) decamped to Italy, she remains an Australian fashion luminary. Her home on Sydney harbour (page 132), shot exclusively for Vogue Living, reveals an attitude and aesthetic that are proudly of our shores. With a nod to the romance of the French Riviera, it’s the breezy colour palette and whimsical art (a life-size whale, anyone?) that — to my mind anyway — place Dinnigan’s home firmly in the southern hemisphere. Writer Chris Pearson describes it as ‘a couture one-off ’. Perfectly put.