STM

Photographing your so that it doesn’t look like an actual dog’s breakfast is surprisingly difficult. It’s also challenging because your eye-rolling mates generally don’t appreciate having to wait for permission to commence eating while you faff around trying to make sure the schnitty isn’t sitting in a shadow. Plus, you usually look and feel like a massive tool while you’re at it. One of the many magical things about Wills Domain - as food reviewer Amanda Keenan finds this week - is that the food is so spectacular, so mind-bendingly beautiful, and so exquisite in its detail and apparent light-refracting abilities that it is surely impossible to take a bad shot of it. Read the full review in this weekend’s .

New series Four Years Later, from the producers of Colin From Accounts and The Twelve, is just beautiful. Sydney, Mumbai and Jaipur shimmer and shine on screen, as does award-winning actress Shahana Goswami and Akshay Ajit Singh as married couple Sridevi and Yash, who reunite in after four years apart. Yash has moved here to take up a medical traineeship, and it’s only after several years that his partner is able to travel from India to join him. Needless to say, when they eventually do reunite, a lot has changed. can’t wait for everyone to watch this SBS series. Also this week in Screen Queen, The Great Outdoors is back on Seven after a 12-year hiatus, and ANOTHER spin-off hits Stan - this one focusing on Dazzler and Carol.

When Chris Hammer found himself, pen in hand to fill in an entry card at an airport in 2018, he faced a dilemma. Under “occupation” he would always write journalist, after a storied career spanning more than three decades. But he had lost his job in a wave of redundancies the year before, so that was no longer strictly accurate. Earlier that year his first fiction book, Scrublands, had been an instant bestseller, but it felt far too pretentious to write novelist. In the end, Hammer opted for writer. But this month, returning from a writers’ festival in Scotland, and with publication of his seventh novel The Valley imminent, Hammer embraced his new identity. On his airport entry card in September 2024, he jotted it down: Chris Hammer, author. In this week’s , Hammer speaks to Katherine Fleming about the road from journalist to author ahead of his visit.
Photography: Mike Bowers

With gold around her neck, an engagement ring on her finger and a new beginning beyond the pool, Brianna Throssell has a lot to celebrate. Fresh off the back of an enviable Euro summer, and three years of living in Queensland, ’s golden girl is finally back on home soil. In this weekend’s , Throssell reflects on a massive career, reveals what it was like to win gold in Paris and talks to Jade Jurewicz about what’s next. Read the full story this Sunday.

Hair and make-up: Hendra Widjaja
Styling: Megan French
Photography: Ross Swanborough
Location: Scarborough Beach Pool

With gold around her neck, an engagement ring on her finger and a new beginning beyond the pool, Brianna Throssell has a lot to celebrate. Fresh off the back of an enviable Euro summer, and three years of living in Queensland, ’s golden girl is finally back on home soil. In this weekend’s , Throssell reflects on a massive career, reveals what it was like to win gold in Paris and talks to Jade Jurewicz about what's next. Read the full story this Sunday.
Hair and make-up: Hendra Widjaja
Styling: Megan French
Photography: Ross Swanborough
Location: Scarborough Beach Pool

Who wouldn’t want to chill out in this inviting area, kicking back with a lazy chat? In this weekend’s Edit, reveals how to style your own abode to reflect Fenton & Fenton’s simple yet effective colour scheme that makes this space look effortlessly curated.
Photography: Eve Wilson

Nick Caton worked at the exclusive clubs, where discretion is essential. The new Lawson Flats boss won’t tell many stories, but there is this one about Paul McCartney… In this weekend’s Caton gives Simon Collins a behind the scenes look at the Soho House empire, venues where he has sneaked his fair share of the mega-rich and uber-famous through back doors, fire escapes and kitchens. He’s also held at least one world leader’s wife’s hair back while she threw up in a toilet after a few too many. Read the full story this Sunday.
📸: Ian Munro

From Harry and Sally to Ross and Rachel, there are plenty of iconic couples we’ve fallen in love with on our screens over the decades. As finds this week, there are about to be two new names to the list: Noah and Joanne. The thoroughly delightful Netflix series, Nobody Wants This, is all about an agnostic podcaster (Joanne, played by Kristen Bell) who falls for an unconventional rabbi (Noah, played by Adam Brody). Their characters are irresistibly made for each other — and Clare can’t get enough. Also this week, Brad Pitt and George Clooney star in Apple TV Plus series Wolfs, and season three of quiet achiever From is streaming on Stan.

Bright, warm and inviting, the unexpected palette adds a feeling of joy and a touch of spring to this dining space. In this weekend’s Home Edit, Dulux’s Andrea Lucena-Orr tells how to mix tones - such as lemon, terracotta and neutrals - in your space to create a playful atmosphere.
Styling: Bree Leech
Picture: Lisa Cohen

Looking for a film to see with the kids over the school holidays? STM’s film expert says The Wild Robot, the new animated movie from DreamWorks, is “nothing short of a masterpiece”. In Sunday’s , he speaks to director Chris Sanders about the film, based on The New York Times bestselling kids’ book by Peter Brown, which tells the story of a utility robot, ROZZUM unit 7134 (or Roz to its friends), that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, booting up to discover its only companions are the wild animals that live there. The result is a truly poignant message about found family and our relationship to the natural world. With a voice cast including Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Bill Nighy and Catherine O’Hara, The Wild Robot also uses hand-painting to set itself apart from many other animated films. Read the full story in STM this weekend.
📸: DreamWorks Animation/Charles W. Murphy/Universal

In STM this week, we speak to about her new TV project, a Disney dramedy which takes place against the backdrop of a fascinating time in WA’s history. Last Days Of The Space Age is set in 1979 Perth, when hosted the iconic Miss Universe pageant (complete with infamous stage collapse) and made global news as NASA’s Skylab space shuttle fell to Earth, its fragments scattering across the south-west. As Mitchell explains to Clare Rigden, the real-life events provide “this surreal backdrop to things that seem almost mundane; the everydayness of life … I thought it added a bit of wackiness to the show, kind of a bit of obtuse insanity”. As well as the chance to dive into archive footage and spend time in her beloved home country (the series was mostly shot on Australia’s east coast), Mitchell says it was also an opportunity to sink her teeth into a nuance role in a story that held up a mirror to history. Read the full story in this weekend’s .
📸: Diana Ragland

To stumble onto Moose Cafe & Restaurant, a Swedish-leaning hidey-hole off Claremont’s Bay View Terrace, felt like discovering a secret for — though the nearly full cafe suggested she’s the last one in on it. In this weekend’s food review, Kate Emery samples a “magnificent” saffron soup, so good she came back a few weeks later to try something called a Nordic bowl. Read the full review this Sunday.
📸: Riley Churchman

In the 48 hours before got to his feet in front of 225 graduating students at UWA, he sat down and wrote a speech about nine life lessons — a funny, whimsically brutal examination of what begets a meaningful existence. He he can’t remember if he knew it was being recorded — but once online, the 2013 address went swiftly viral. A couple of hundred million views later and the relatively off-the-cuff composition beamed Minchin’s “science-loving, pragmatic-progressive, reality-romantic worldview” to a global audience. “Probably a pretty good argument for not thinking about s..t too much,” he notes. But recently, Minchin has found himself thinking a lot more about that speech, as he wrote his first non-fiction book, You Don’t Have To Have A Dream: a collection of three commencement addresses, with new introductions to put them in the context of his life at the time and the wisdom gained since. In this weekend’s , Minchin tells Katherine Fleming about why he advocates micro-ambition over long-term dreams, the corrosive effect of social media and why being hard on your beliefs is essential. The book, published by Penguin with illustrations by Andrew Rae, is out now; there are limited tickets available to A Conversation With Tim Minchin at Perth Concert Hall at 2pm and 7.30pm on September 29.
📸: Damian Bennett / Ron D'Raine

If you love movies like Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, It’s Complicated and The Parent Trap, you will know they have one thing in common — warm interiors with dreamy, gorgeous kitchens, says House of Rohl stylist Fiona Gould. “(Filmmaker) Nancy Meyers’ homes have a unique way of feeling luxurious, spacious, and elegant without ever coming across as pretentious,” Gould tells . In this weekend’s Home Edit, Gould shares tips on creating your own movie magic space at home.
📸: Lauren Miller

Singing a new composition to Nicola Bulgari, grandson of the founder of luxury brand Bvlgari, is not the first time Sorrento-raised soprano Elena Perroni has performed for a billionaire, and it probably won’t be her last. In this weekend’s , the velvet-voiced singer tells Tanya MacNaughton about performing the piece, Canti Della Natura, written by Grammy-winning American composer and academic Richard Danielpour, at the Bulgari estate in Rome, before heading home to play the central role in WA Opera’s production of Rusalka. Perroni, who describes walking through a garage filled with Bulgari’s collection of 250 classic cars, also opens up about her new life in Italy, after a decade in the US.

Photography: Tülay Dincel
Fashion: Dilettante

Surrounded by opulent blooms in one of the city’s most beautiful buildings, adorned in a jacket woven with some of nature’s most delicate jewels, Rebecca Const seems perfectly at home. It’s hard to believe Const, who created the stunning arrangements for a special STM shoot at , never intended to be a florist. The founder of knows now that it is her passion; her skilled eye has built a business that supplies premium to many of WA’s most spectacular weddings, creates arrangements for Perth’s most luxurious hotels, and works weekly with designer fashion boutiques. In this weekend, Const tells Megan French about the healing power of nature, starting her business in her parents’ laundry and the personal and professional storms she has weathered in the 14 years since. Read the full story inside STM’s luxury edition this weekend.

Photography: Michael Wilson
Florals: Fox & Rabbit
Hair and make-up: Hendra Widjaja
Styling and creative direction: Megan French

Styling Credits:
On the cover, Rebecca wears her own dress and floral arrangement with Bloom earrings from Kailis Jewellery.
Second look: Rebecca wears the Acid Bloom mini dress from Rebecca Vallance and pink sapphire and diamond drop earrings, aquamarine and diamond dress ring and Honey Hex South Sea Pearl and diamond double ring, all from Soklich & Co.
Third look: Rebecca wears the Petunia gown from Rebecca Vallance and the Melody bracelet, earrings and signature necklace, all from Kailis Jewellery.

Wayfinder in is a very clever concept, as food reviewer Amanda Keenan finds this week. A winery restaurant that is not at a winery, you can book a free wine tasting session at this slickest of situations — all blond wood and good vibes thanks to the celebrated Kerry Hill Architects — and then proceed to semi-drunkenly decide to purchase more of their (admittedly excellent) wines to enjoy during a leisurely lunch. In Sunday’s , Keenan checks out the slick and sexy wine bar, cellar door and restaurant doing stellar food and booze.

Social media has a lot to answer for, and not just the toll on our mental health or the hours lost to scrolling. In pursuit of a viral dish that looks good on the ‘gram, many cafes invent ever-more outlandish meals, regardless of taste. In her & review of Little Donkey Corner in Tuart Hill, Kate Emery admits she suspected its fairy floss-topped French toast was among them – until a taste revealed a surprisingly balanced dish. But its less flashy savoury dishes, including what might be her new favourite smashed avo, are what really won her over. Read her full inside this weekend’s .
📸: Jackson Flindell

It’s hard to overstate the impact of The Sopranos on the landscape; it still regularly tops best-of lists, despite the final season airing 17 years ago. As a new generation discovers the mob drama thanks to Tiktok, Screen Queen Clare Rigden dives into an excellent new doco on Binge - , centred on the show’s creator, David Chase – which is crammed full of revelation and weaves a fascinating story. She also casts an eye over Return to Paradise, Spent, : One For the Road, and part two of .

When Poppy Garbin’s retro 1995 Toyota Coaster, packed with her husband and their three young kids, rounded the driveway of their home for the first time, the whole family was in tears. It had been a long journey — literally and figuratively — after two years in lockdown in , a drive across the Nullarbor and a month-long stop in waiting for the border to open. But for Garbin, who runs popular sustainable furniture business Pop and Scott with her husband Scott Gibson, the pull to return home to had been tugging even before the COVID-19 pandemic put their lives on hold. In this weekend’s STM, she talks to Jade Jurewicz about the magic of Wadandi Boodja and how they transformed the stunning property, part of which will open to the public during Margaret River Region Open Studios, from September 9-24.
📸: Jasmine Ann Gardiner

When aired in the 1990s, it was a cultural phenomenon: a love letter to and to female friendship. Flaws and all, it showed women as complicated, sexually confident, well-rounded characters in a way that was rarely done at the time. For Candace Bushnell, whose column in the New York Observer (under the name Carrie) led her to write the book the show was based on, it’s gratifying to see the stories resonating with a new generation. As she tells Jade Jurewicz in this weekend’s , ahead of bringing her tell-all speaking tour to Perth in December, her enduring message to her audience is independence: be your own Mr Big.
📸: Grace Fries

While complementary colours can create a harmonious space, embracing contrast can also be striking, as Maya Anderson explains in Edit this weekend. In this dining room by Mocka, the black dining table acts as the centrepiece in an architectural space that otherwise embraces natural timber and warm colour. Find out how to get the look in Sunday’s .
📸: Mocka

In his early 20s, when other Aussies his age were pulling pints in a London pub or lugging backpacks through a South American hostel, was otherwise occupied – in the pool, becoming the legend known as the Thorpedo. So when he got the call about competing on the upcoming season of The Amazing Race: Celebrity Edition, Thorpe jumped at the chance to have something akin to the gap year travel adventure he missed out on. In this weekend’s , he tells Clare Rigden why he picked his best mate Christian Miranda to race with, his competitive spirit and how he feels about the other high profile duos on the show.
📸: Remco Jansen

life changed almost overnight 10 years ago when he auditioned for the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in - and got in. In this weekend’s STM he reflects on the past decade with , a journey that has led him to the centre of what is arguably the biggest series on television: Prime Video’s hugely popular Lord Of The Rings spin-off, The Rings Of Power. Vickers plays Halbrand, a character audiences learnt last season was actually the evil Dark Lord, Sauron in disguise — J.R.R. Tolkien’s most feared villain. He’s up for the challenge. Read the full story in .
📸: Charlie Gray and Prime Video

has always had a thing for spies. Over the years she’s devoured anything espionage-related, thumbing her way through Jeffrey Archer novels, and diving head-first into shows like Homeland and The Night Manager. Those high-octane TV shows and well-thumbed page-turners did nothing to dissuade her from the idea the world of spying was impossibly glamorous — it wasn’t until she began watching Apple TV’s very excellent Slow Horses (now in its fourth season) that she began to realise she’d been widely off the mark. Also this week in TV, the chronically online will love The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (all about the Mormon TikTok influencer mums who founded the popular phenomenon) streaming on Plus, and The Perfect Couple starring Nicole Kidman hits Netflix.