Fiona Apple is back enthralling fans live after a hiatus. It’s been five years since she played live and seven years since her last album. “There was no hello. No small talk. No chatter. Instead, she began to spasm as her band cranked into the stop-start, piano-based jazz groove of ‘Fast as You Can,’ a [...]

“People think money is like magic, that it can change everything, but it can’t.” JK Rowling told Oprah Winfrey in her 2010 interview. Maybe money can’t change everything, but the Harry Potter author has given so much that she has been knocked off the Forbes billionaire’s list – a rumored $160m in donations to date. [...]

Lucia, an eight year-old girl from a Mexican indigenous village, tells me how, when she grows up, she wants to be ‘white’. It’s no wonder–you never see a ‘non-white’ woman in the Mexican media, except as a servants. Mixed-race (mestizo) and indigenous people make up nearly 90 percent of the Mexican population, and a mestiza, [...]

It’s a subject that divides and embarrasses Australians- the intervention into indigenous communities? In 2007 stories broke of rampant child abuse in several Aboriginal communities. The women of these communities told their story in desperation to the media because the government and police weren’t acting. When finally it hit the national papers, it shocked nation. [...]

Sok Shabdrung Dujom Dorjee Rinpoche was recognized as a lama at birth. This meant he was subjected to humiliation from the Chinese and local villagers who were forced to abuse him even as a boy. As an adult he was imprisoned; first for six years and then for seven. It was in prison that he [...]

Edun’s Sharon Wauchob took a turn into the urban jungle at New York Fashion Week 2012. The location was a disused concrete pier on the Hudson River. The former ethical label, and debatably still ethical label, founded by Ali Hewson (aca Mrs. Bono from U2) as a non-profit label bringing opportunities to Africa sold 49% [...]

Paris-based, Canadien-bred Calla Haynes showed in New York at Milk Studios and dazzled in digital prints showcasing her mix of haute couture inspired tailoring and fun. Calla collection was based on interior elements. The show melded 15 textured looks inspired from wood and granite imagery with colors including peacock blue. Haynes applied her signature prints [...]

San Francisco born designer Erin Fetherston’s presented her ERIN collection at New York Fashion 2012 on Saturday, which was also styled by the WILD’s fashion director Guillaume Boulez. Last year she heralded her collection ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream that stars Mia Farrow’, this year she has tempted us deeper into the secret forest with Greek [...]

photo courtesy of Icebreaker Wool comes from sheep and also yaks, llamas, alpacas, angora rabbits and goats. It has been with us since biblical times, but in the modern world, is it an ethical fabric that you should be choosing? Here are some facts. Most wool comes animals that roam and graze (angora being the [...]

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s eyes. In 1940s British photographer Norman Parkinson began taking assignments in New York for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. The 6’ 6 aristocratic eccentric juxtaposed fashion silhouettes against the New York skyline with grandeur but gradually began breaking away from poised to show cheek and a tell story in a single [...]

Bocas Del Toro in a dramatic archipelago of tropical islands just across the Panama border from Costa Rica. Less spoiled and commercialized than Costa Rica, the Ngobe people have farmed and fished the water for thousands of years. The Ngobe also fought off pirates and Spanish conquistadors to remain independent through most of the last [...]