From top The Stoneleigh pop-up bar at the Auckland stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race. Scenes at sea over the weekend during the Volvo Ocean Race: from the all-women Team SCA, where Sam Davies and crew sail past a traditional Vietnamese fishing boat; and on board Dongfeng Race Team.

When the Volvo Ocean Race hits Auckland, Stoneleigh will host a pop-up garden bar from February 27 to March 15.
   The bar will be located at Te Wero Island on the Auckland Viaduct, and Stoneleigh will serve its Latitude wines from Marlborough’s Golden Mile, complemented by food from Masu restaurant.
   It will open from 11.30 a.m. to 10 p.m. during this period.
   ‘We’re thrilled to be associated with such a highly anticipated event,’ said Stoneleigh winemaker, Jamie Marfell. ‘The Auckland stopover of the 2014–15 Volvo Ocean Race is being held in a superb location and we look forward to taking in all of the in-port action.’

Above The home page of the Spark My Potential website.

Following on from its Spark Lab Fashion Month announcement, the New Zealand telco will support one New Zealander who wishes to start in the fashion industry.
   The successful applicant, to be announced on February 27 as Fashion Month concludes, will be supported through the crowd-funding initiative, Spark My Potential. They will receive access to coaching, publicity and top-up funding through the Spark Foundation, says the company.
   New Zealanders are invited to apply by emailing fashionmonth@spark.co.nz before February 20, 2015, detailing the project, goal, funding target and timeline.
   ‘Whether you want to create your own fashion line, you need help entering this year’s Fashion Week, or you want to do something completely outside the square, we’d like to hear from you,’ said Spark GM for Home, Mobile and Business Jason Paris in a release.

The Body Shop’s first official release this year is sure to make its mark on 2015 with the introduction of the scandalous Red Musk collection. A fiery statement to kick-start the New Year will surely shake the foundations of convention and tradition. Following on from the classic 1981 White Musk collection, regarded as the first fragrance with man-made cruelty-free musk, the Body Shop’s latest release is set to challenge conventions by composing a feminine fragrance which men can wear, too.
   The malleability of this scent is immediately captured within the bottle itself. A classically rounded vessel with a minimalist stopper seduces the eye with a gradual blend of tones from black to a zesty red, to a deep orange ending with a clear finish. This visualization perfectly echoes the smouldering scent within. A blend of pepper, cinnamon and tobacco teases the senses with a subtle yet spicy aroma. The pepper immediately adds a sparkling dimension introducing a sensual bite, immediately followed with the sweet yet savoury notes of the cinnamon; finally, the tobacco amplifies a mysterious allure with a smoky finish.
   This suitable combination is unusual for a fragrance specifically for women and, as a result, challenges the tradition of men’s scent as well. The interchangeability of this musk provides a feminine edge whilst soothing the masculinity of the aromas, culminating in a dynamic scent that transcends the traditional label of unisex. The campaign stresses ‘No Flowers, Only Spices’ to emphasize the significance of not merely breaking the rules but making their own.
   This scent has been perfected throughout the collection including a body lotion, fragrance mist and body wash as well as the perfume. The collection will reach stores next week, on January 26. The sensual fragrance makes it the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day and the radical positioning and smouldering scent make it the ideal statement fragrance of 2015.—Elle Wright

Spark, having rebranded from Telecom New Zealand, is giving itself a fresh start in 2015 by connecting to the world of fashion. Spark Lab will host 14 free events from the fashion industry in Britomart, Auckland, hosted by the likes of Zambesi, Levi’s, Juliette Hogan, Huffer, Crane Brothers, I Love Ugly, MAC, AUT and Showroom 22.
   Spark Lab’s intent is to share creative ideas with all New Zealanders, providing them with first-hand access to mentors.
   It is open to non-customers and follows on with its Music Month from November 2014. RSVPs are open now, and the full timetable can be seen at www.spark.co.nz/sparklab.

David M. Benett/Getty Images

Above Candice Swanepoel was the most-searched professional model in Lucire’s online news pages this year, coming in sixth.

In 2012, Keira Knightley was the most searched-for celebrity in the news section of the Lucire website. In 2013, that honour went to HRH Princess Madeleine of Sweden, followed by Knightley and Penélope Cruz. They are, largely, what you would expect from a fashion magazine.
   The 2014 rankings were a surprise when we began crunching the data before Christmas. In first place, talk show host and selfie queen (or was it talk show queen and selfie host?) Ellen DeGeneres: this year, everything from the Oscars to a homeware line meant she was on the consciousness of readers the most.
   Showing you can’t keep a Doctor down, Matt Smith surprisingly leapt into second place, after showing up at Cannes post-Doctor Who. Smith has plenty of fans out there, and Whovians apparently form a good part of the internet, getting the Eleventh Doctor this unexpected honour.
   Camille Cerf, the new Miss France, found herself in third place, which is not a huge surprise given that our article on the subject is the first one online. Our former cover girl, and the new Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot came in fourth, while HRH Princess Madeleine, still getting plenty of press attention, was fifth.
   Candice Swanepoel, was the most searched-for professional model, finding herself in the second half of the top 10. Clémence Poésy came seventh, showing that France remains firmly on the radar when it comes to fashionistas. Rio de Janeiro-born model Camila Alves found herself in eighth place.
   Honor Dillon, now Honor Carter, has plenty of admirers, and might net herself a few more with the signing of her husband Dan to a rugby club in France. The sole Kiwi in the top ten found herself in ninth spot this year. Rounding off the top ten was Mădălina Ghenea, the Romanian-born, Milano-based actress and model.
   Our biggest surprise was that Lupita Nyong’o did not appear—we even called her our ‘Woman of the Year’ on our Tumblog.
   Pageant news was top, since we were the first to announce both Miss France and Miss Universe New Zealand—Camille Cerf and Rachel Millns—while the Brancott Estate World of Wearable Art Awards was the third-most-read news article of 2014 here (another news outlet beat us to it, thanks to a WordPress glitch). An advertorial for the Sports Illustrated Air New Zealand safety video was fourth, which perhaps is no surprise given that the cover announcement, historically, is well read. A “proper” fashion article, on Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York’s fall–winter 2014–15 collections, came fifth. Matt Smith, along with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, and Gemma Arterton, helped get an article from the Festival de Cannes into sixth place.
   Overall, traffic for the top 10 was down due to regular Wordpress glitches that prevented some articles from being picked up properly—highlighting how online publishers can now find themselves at the mercy of software.
   Hard data aside, pop over to the main part of the site where we name our news-makers of 2014—Ellen DeGeneres is in there, but there are some surprises, too.

Two fantastic works exploring very different aspects of New Zealand culture and identity have come across our desks here at Lucire, from the Auckland University Press.

Puna Wai Kōrero: an Anthology of Māori Poetry in English
Earlier this year, the first anthology of Maori poetry in English was published featuring a wide collection of prominent Maori poets. Edited by two leading Māori writers and scholars, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan, who previously edited the award-winning Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (winner of a Montana New Zealand Book Award) and Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English II (finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards), Puna Wai Kōrero offers the most diverse range of Māori voices ever published.
   The poems themselves are organized into chapters featuring short biographies about each writer, providing a richer background to the history of Māori poetry. They combine the traditional forms of oral poetry—including waiata ringaringa, waiata tangi and waiata aroha—with the influence of western poetry and the English written language to create new poetic genres, developing alongside modernist and postmodernist movements. Their assemblage of styles provides a unique perspective on numerous outlooks on life and modes of writing, laments for koro and hopes for mokopuna, celebrations of the land and anger at its abuse, retellings of myth and reclamations of history. The rich ensemble of established writers and exciting newer poets, examines political and social commentaries from early days of contact to the present, from Aotearoa and the wider world.
   This comprehensive anthology presents one hundred and twenty years of poetry written in English by Māori poets. The authentic lineage of each poet enriches the engagement with these poetic forms, Puna Wai Kōrero traces this past whakapapa and celebrates its present–day strength. This anthology strives to bring together Māori writers and editors and through language and ideas, through stories and shared experiences, this books offers an opportunity for the readers to discover or rediscover what it is to be Māori.

How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, by Chris Tse
A début collection for New Zealand-born Chris Tse delivers a lyrical narrative, focused around the 1905 Wellington murder of Cantonese gold miner Joe Kum Yung by white supremacist Lionel Terry. Tse’s poetry has previously been featured in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies. This collection demonstrates his emotive power of language and creatively striking narrative coherence. This new addition to New Zealand literature offers an expansive collection from a unique cultural and historical perspective.
   Tse’s poetry serves as a vehicle to give a voice to the dead man, by paying respect to the many lives consumed by the crime. Tse uses ‘the year of the snake’—1905—as a symbol to focus the narrative through a moment of culture contact and to consider the time gap between then and now. Tse’s collection provides an emotionally driven occurrence of a cultural and historical event by summoning the ghost of Joe Kum Yung to question justice, empathy and tolerance and how they remain today. The poetic memorial effectively challenges the reader to ponder over who owns the stories, what can we learn from the past and what should we take forward to the future.
   The works are organized around the central narrative of the murder, intertwined with poems focused on contemplating and provoking ideas from the author’s perspective, the perspective of the characters, and the nation as a whole. Tse’s language invites the reader to explore and discover truth and meaning behind this episode and to bring focus to the significance of this tragic event within New Zealand history.—Eleanor Wright

The Marlborough Falcon Trust Falcon Valley has opened at the Brancott Estate Heritage Centre this week, a memorable destination for travellers in New Zealand this summer. The result of a partnership between the Trust and Brancott Estate, visitors can check get up close with a kārearea (New Zealand falcon) for a donation. The donations will go toward falcon awareness and rehabilitation at the Trust’s aviary in Marlborough.
   The Trust has two advocacy birds in flight that visitors can see as part of the Brancott Estate Falcon Encounter. The birds help keep grape-eating birds away from the vineyard, and can reach 200 km/h when hunting.
   There are fewer than 3,000 pairs if kārearea in the wild, and they face a number of threats, including loss of habitat, electrocution on power poles, collisions with turbines on wind farms, predation by cats and hedgehogs, and stoats and rats preying on eggs and nestlings. They are listed as a threatened species by the Department of Conservation.
   The Falcon Encounter also includes a tasting of wines from the Brancott Estate Living Land range of organic wines. The range has raised a good deal of the NZ$500,000 that the winery has given to the Trust, where NZ$1 from each bottle is donated to the Living Land Fund. The funds have helped finance a 16-pen rehabilitation and breeding aviary, and the ongoing care of falcons.

Above Alive Skin & Hair offers Australian and New Zealand customers a range of 3,000 beauty products.

Alive Skin & Hair has launched, stocking over 3,000 hair care, make-up, beauty and skin care products, targeting Australian and New Zealand customers. The website stocks brands including Alpha H, ASAP Skincare, Dermalogica, Elemis, Jane Iredale, Joico, Matrix, Moroccanoil, Skinceuticals, St Tropez, Thalgo, and Youngblood, supplied straight from the manufacturer, and sold ay 15 to 35 per cent off the recommended retail price. Alive Skin & Hair can ship the same day for orders placed before 12 p.m. AEST, and shoppers earn points with each purchase. There are experts to help with online and telephone enquiries. Alive Skin & Hair also gives shoppers the chance to choose two new samples to try, for free, with each order.
   New Zealand natural skin care brand Living Nature has gained a bigger footprint in the Japanese market with a concept store on the second floor of the Grand Tree Musashikosugi Shopping Centre near Shibuya, Tokyo. Operated by @Star Japan, the Living Nature distributor there, the new store reaches thousands of Japanese shoppers, located a few minutes from the busy Musashi–Kosugi train station, which sees 390,000 commuters per day. @Star Japan, meanwhile, has operated since 2000, and has had a long-standing relationship with Living Nature.
   In a release, @Star sales and promotion manager Ai Takahara said, ‘This development of the concept store provides a way to engage with consumers and enable our highly trained staff to share their experience of the Living Nature range, which offers truly natural products for face and body.’
   In Cornwall, England, Spiezia Organics has rebranded, and is about to launch three new hair and body products, containing 95–8 per cent certified organic ingredients and botanicals. Its Organic Gloss shampoo features ingredients including lemon peel extract, zizyphus joazerio bark extract and dandrilys; its Organic Shine conditioner helps stimulate hair growth with ginger oil and lemon peel extract, and contains royal jelly to strengthen the follicles and prevent hair loss; and its organic hand and body cleanser has aloe vera gel, radish oil and lemongrass oil. Spiezia Organics’ commitment to the environment extends to its 100 per cent sustainable packaging, while it is the first UK company to have Soil Association accreditation across its whole skin care range.