Shoes like Jagger: The surprising footwear trend kicking off sneakers
Footwear designers are turning their attention away from basketball courts and the athletic track to dance studios for inspiration as jazz shoes make a claim to being the strongest and sassiest contender for the shoe of spring.
You can't run a marathon in them, but you will always be ready for a spontaneous performance of Chicago the musical.
'The jazz shoe trend taps into the balletcore revival, blending everyone's love for nostalgic dancewear with modern street style,' says stylist Elliot Garnaut, who has worked with Shanina Shaik, Karl Stefanovic, Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding. 'Sleek, minimal and universally wearable, they're fast replacing the statement sneaker as the off-duty footwear for people in fashion.'
Gaining momentum after appearing on the Celine runway at Paris Fashion Week, the jazz shoe could finally supplant the supremacy of sneaker styles, embraced by billionaire Rupert Murdoch for his most recent wedding and US President Trump.
The French fashion brand is luxury conglomerate LVMH's third-largest label, behind Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, with estimated annual sales of €2.5 billion ($4.4 billion). Michael Rider's debut as creative director at Celine featured a series of slim-line leather jazz shoes in white and black, signalling a significant shift in the direction of footwear.
At first glance, the low and laced leather shoes could be mistaken for ballet slippers or Derby styles, enjoying a resurgence at Chanel, but there's a crucial difference according to Vince Lebon, founder of Melbourne footwear label Rollie Nation.
'The jazz shoe is not as rigid as other traditional shoes and differs from the Derby as it has a flexible two-piece outsole, the heel pad and the forefoot pad,' Lebon says. 'The jazz shoe typically sits closer to the ground which allows for further stability. If a dancer is jumping in the air, they want to land confidently.'
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Perth Now
11 hours ago
- Perth Now
Andy Serkis and Sir Ben Kingsley to star in Young Washington
Andy Serkis, Sir Ben Kingsley and Joel David Smallbone have joined the cast of Young Washington. The trio have joined the presidential origin story that is being developed by Wonder Project and Angel Studios. The movie - which is being directed by Wonder Project's Jon Erwin - stars the previously announced William Franklyn-Miller as a young George Washington and chronicles the beginnings of the first American president. After he makes a tremendous mistake that triggers the French and Indian War, the ambitious 22-year-old Washington must face up to his failures and find the courage to become a leader who will forge a nation. Kingsley will play Robert Dinwiddie, the strong-willed Virginia Governor who entrusts Washington with his first command, with Serkis starring as General Edward Braddock – an overconfident British officer who gives the defeated Washington another shot at military glory. Smallbone portrays William Fairfax, a cunning friend and romantic rival to Washington who moves effortlessly into the world of the British upper class to which the future president aspires. The film has been written by Erwin, Tom Provost and Diederik Hoogstraten and is due to enter production later this summer. In an unusual move, Angel Studios have made tickets available last month on its own platform – even though the movie is not being released for another year and not a single scene has been shot yet. Serkis is best known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy but confessed previously that starring in the epic fantasy franchise didn't hold much appeal to him at first. He told a Fan Expo San Francisco panel last year: "When I was first approached to play the role, it was explained to me by my agent when I first spoke to them on the phone about it. "They said, 'Look, they're making this little film down in New Zealand called Lord of the Rings, and they want to see you for a voice for a digital character.' "And I was like, 'What? There must be a dozen good roles in that movie.' "Can you not get me up for something decent?' And they said, 'Well, it is Gollum.' And I said, 'That's a decent role. Yeah, okay, alright, I'm listening.' " Serkis thought that he would just be voicing Gollum until director Sir Peter Jackson introduced him to motion capture technology. The 61-year-old actor said: "But originally, it was explained to me that it was just going to be the voice. And then when I met Peter Jackson and auditioned, he explained that they were just on the verge of trying out this new technology called motion capture, and that he wanted an actor to be on set to act with the other actors. Because up to that point, many CG characters were only represented by a tennis ball on a stick, and the actors had to pretend that they were having a relationship with it. "Gollum, as many people know, drives a lot of the scenes and drives the wedges between Frodo and Sam, and it's all about the interaction. He wanted an actor to play that character. "Motion capture aside, I just approached it like any other role, getting into the psychology and the physicality and then the voice."
Sydney Morning Herald
14 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books to try
This week's books range from an incongruously sunny haunted-house thriller and some high-ocatane espionage to a celebration of the joys of reading and the history of the dingo species. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Notes on Infinity Austin Taylor Michael Joseph, $34.99 Notes on Infinity reminded me of the recent reports of scientific fraud by cancer researcher Professor Mark Smyth. It's science fiction, yes, but it also dives into the cutthroat world of contemporary biomedical research with great perspicacity and psychological insight. Jack and Zoe are gifted scientists who meet in a chemistry lab at MIT. A shared passion for their field predates any romance, and when their research into ageing suggests a treatment to increase human longevity might be viable and just around the corner, research grants and venture capital pour in. Within a few years, they've formed a company that could revolutionise not just the way we live, but how long we live for. But is their venture all it claims to be? As the pair fall genuinely in love, difficult truths – and worse, deceptions – will emerge from the trail of their ambition. Scandal and disaster lie in wait. Taylor has an absorbing writing style, and this sharply crafted campus romance swings effortlessly into the high-pressure environment of scientific research. It also introduces a change of perspective midway, complicating motivations and anchoring the book's inevitable sweep into genuine tragedy. Gothic fiction is supposed to be one of the shadowy arts. Drear and darkness. Fog and fen. Brooding gloom of one kind or another. Sunny days? Not so much, although Rebecca Starford's The Visitor goes to great lengths to invert the usual genre conventions and let the sunshine in. In this haunted house story, expat Laura returns from the UK to Brisbane, following her parents' sudden and mysterious demise in the Queensland outback. Laura must organise their affairs and sell her childhood home, and her 14-year-old daughter Tilly tags along for the ride – only to become increasingly concerned at her mother's strange behaviour. Bizarre events make Tilly wonder if the house might be truly haunted although, with a nosey neighbour in the mix, it's possible a more sinister human plot is afoot. And what of Laura's parents? Were they attempting to escape from the house when they met their deaths? As the characters confront the uncanny, buried trauma comes to light, promised shadows appear, and the novel's disorientations settle into a more classic, if sunlit, gothic tale. Some small fraction of espionage fiction is written by spooks and former spooks. Stella Rimington – the former director general of MI5 – turned to novel-writing in her retirement and Jack Beaumont, as a former French intelligence operative himself, has the same kind of cred. Liar's Game continues the globetrotting action series begun in The Frenchman. This time, French spy Alec de Payns is tasked with safely escorting a North Korean defector, who claims to have knowledge of a cyberattack which could destroy the global economy. When the defector dies in his arms before sharing crucial intel, the failure attracts the ire of his superiors, and it isn't long before another mission unravels. Suddenly, Alec is hung out to dry. He finds himself alone, hunted across South-East Asia and forced to rely on tradecraft to stay ahead of both the law and the lawless, on a solo mission to protect his family from retribution, and root out a sinister conspiracy that wants him dead. It's another fast-paced, high-octane contemporary spy novel from Beaumont, sure to please existing fans of the series and attract new ones into the fold. Eden Mark Brandi Hachette, $32.99 Ex-con Tom Blackburn has been inside for nine years, serving time for accessory to murder. Upon his release, his already narrow chances at rebuilding a life dwindle through further misfortune. He winds up sleeping rough and, following a tip, heads to the Melbourne General Cemetery to find somewhere among the graves. There, he encounters the overseer of the grounds, Cyril, and lucks onto a job as a casual caretaker, with a roof over his head to boot. But the past isn't done with Tom. A journalist is piqued by the mystery of how he came to be involved in the crime that sent him to jail, with questions that bring danger and trauma to the surface. Meanwhile, Cyril offers him a Faustian bargain that could turn what at first, seemed to be a source of sanctuary into a hellish position indeed. Melbourne – and particularly, its famed cemetery – are vividly depicted in Mark Brandi's Eden, and the novel explores gritty social and ethical problems with more intelligence and conscience than most crime fiction. Climbing in Heels Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas Corvus, $34.99 The hottest talent agency in 1980s Hollywood is about to get a shake-up. Three young secretaries are on the rise – fast-talking Valley Girl Beanie Rosen; posh and well-connected English beauty Mercedes Baxter; and Ella Gaddy, a blueblood from Kentucky – and they're determined to stake a claim in what remains solidly Mad Men territory. They'll execute a hostile takeover… or resort to tricks that make the Hollywood swamp so slimy, if that's what it takes. The tale of ambitious women in the pre-#Me Too Hollywood landscape could have been fascinating. Unfortunately, the book droops languidly in the middle, there's rather a lot of not-very-well-written sex in it, and the author seems to become sidetracked by the hedonism and corruption (and big hair) of '80s Hollywood, without advancing the plot. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has come up with a promising idea for a female friends and avengers narrative – the protagonists become almost the Charlie's Angels of Hollywood talent agents – but it's let down in the execution. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation Curated by Jennie Orchard Scribe, $35 'Good luck hides inside bad luck.' Novelist Nguyen Phan Que Mai knows this Vietnamese proverb to be true. When creditors came to claim her family's possessions, the only things they didn't seize were her books. During the dark time that followed, reading became her refuge. In these essays, writers reflect on the books that captured their imaginations when they were young and how they try to instil a passion for reading in the next generation. For Tristan Bancks, a storyteller for page and screen, life changed forever at the age of seven when he and some friends found Where Did I Come From? on the bookshelf. It was, they thought, 'the funniest, weirdest, most mind-boggling book on the planet.' He showed it to more friends and in this way reading became a communal and subversive pursuit. Helping kids fall under the spell of books has never been more urgent. Recent reports show reading for pleasure among children has slumped in Australia. This inspiring collection testifies to the life-changing power of books in a child's life. Plain Life. On thinking, feeling and deciding Antonia Pont NewSouth, $34.99 The word 'plain' is so wonderfully at odds with our flashy, extreme, hungry times. To live a plain life, says Antonia Pont, is to decide that your life is intrinsically 'enough'. This is not a form of low expectations or political acquiescence. If anything, it is a refusal of neoliberalism and the penetration of marketplace values into every aspect of life. As such a stance suggests, Plain Life is not a self-help book offering easily digestible rules for living. Pont's elliptical, playful, philosophical style requires readers slow down and observe the workings of their own minds, be curious about the fears they've suppressed and dare to feel them, and become aware of how they collude in their own misery. Drawing on her practice as a yoga teacher, she urges us to stay in the middle of our experience, the place where we can 'take a tiny holiday from a fixed perspective' and find a vast freedom in that. While this is not a straightforward read, the demands of Plain Life are well worth the effort. The Eagle & the Crow JM Field UQP, $24.99 This is not a book that lends itself to synopsis. In fact, it actively resists the reductive nature of such an enterprise. JM Field, a Gamilaraay man, is primarily speaking to his own people about their kinship system and how it endures in practice and in the 'libraries' held in the heads of Aunties. The system remains robust, he says because 'the architects of it, our old people, created a way of relating, and therefore organising, that colonisation could not break.' While general readers cannot expect to fathom the intricate mathematical nature of this kinship system because they are not of it and have not imbibed it through community, we are left with a better understanding of the complexity and vitality of Indigenous relations and the limits of our own world view. Field combines pithy, poetic statements with a series of essays that contrast Western approaches to knowledge as distinct disciplines 'ripped from context' and Indigenous knowledge in which kinship systems allow for 'participation in something much larger than ourselves.' As you'd expect, there are some dramatic rescue stories in this collection of tales from surf lifesavers. But it's the community, camaraderie and competition surf clubs provide that dominate these yarns. A recurring theme from club elders, many of whom remember the days of the old reel and line, is the thrill of surf-boat races, particularly the George Bass Surf Boat Marathon covering 200 kilometres along the NSW's south coast. A lifesaver from Darwin was 65 when she was asked to join a crew for the event. As she observes with laconic understatement, it was a challenge given the 'dubious ocean conditions' but 'it turned out okay'. This kind of grit is typical of these stories, along with a larrikin spirit and sense of humour. Many people, says John Baker, national president of Surf Lifesaving Australia, think 'we're just a mob of fit people hanging around the beach, wearing funny red and yellow caps', when they are, in fact, a well-trained emergency service dealing with all sorts of trauma. One of the many dissonances of the dingo story is that while Australians were happy to demonise this canine for preying on livestock, we were still ready to believe that Lindy Chamberlain, rather than a dingo, killed her baby. The dingo became an official outlaw after the passing of The Native Dogs Destruction Act in 1875, and it was said that it would be a blessing when this 'untameable brute' was made extinct. When Mark Twain came to Australia 20 years later, he saw a very different creature – 'shapely, graceful, a little wolfish but with a most friendly eye and sociable disposition.' Long before the arrival of Europeans, the dingo had a close relationship with Aboriginal people and had been incorporated into their Dreaming as a spiritual icon. In this history of the dingo, Roland Breckwoldt charts our evolving understanding of this now-threatened native animal.
The Age
14 hours ago
- The Age
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books to try
This week's books range from an incongruously sunny haunted-house thriller and some high-ocatane espionage to a celebration of the joys of reading and the history of the dingo species. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Notes on Infinity Austin Taylor Michael Joseph, $34.99 Notes on Infinity reminded me of the recent reports of scientific fraud by cancer researcher Professor Mark Smyth. It's science fiction, yes, but it also dives into the cutthroat world of contemporary biomedical research with great perspicacity and psychological insight. Jack and Zoe are gifted scientists who meet in a chemistry lab at MIT. A shared passion for their field predates any romance, and when their research into ageing suggests a treatment to increase human longevity might be viable and just around the corner, research grants and venture capital pour in. Within a few years, they've formed a company that could revolutionise not just the way we live, but how long we live for. But is their venture all it claims to be? As the pair fall genuinely in love, difficult truths – and worse, deceptions – will emerge from the trail of their ambition. Scandal and disaster lie in wait. Taylor has an absorbing writing style, and this sharply crafted campus romance swings effortlessly into the high-pressure environment of scientific research. It also introduces a change of perspective midway, complicating motivations and anchoring the book's inevitable sweep into genuine tragedy. Gothic fiction is supposed to be one of the shadowy arts. Drear and darkness. Fog and fen. Brooding gloom of one kind or another. Sunny days? Not so much, although Rebecca Starford's The Visitor goes to great lengths to invert the usual genre conventions and let the sunshine in. In this haunted house story, expat Laura returns from the UK to Brisbane, following her parents' sudden and mysterious demise in the Queensland outback. Laura must organise their affairs and sell her childhood home, and her 14-year-old daughter Tilly tags along for the ride – only to become increasingly concerned at her mother's strange behaviour. Bizarre events make Tilly wonder if the house might be truly haunted although, with a nosey neighbour in the mix, it's possible a more sinister human plot is afoot. And what of Laura's parents? Were they attempting to escape from the house when they met their deaths? As the characters confront the uncanny, buried trauma comes to light, promised shadows appear, and the novel's disorientations settle into a more classic, if sunlit, gothic tale. Some small fraction of espionage fiction is written by spooks and former spooks. Stella Rimington – the former director general of MI5 – turned to novel-writing in her retirement and Jack Beaumont, as a former French intelligence operative himself, has the same kind of cred. Liar's Game continues the globetrotting action series begun in The Frenchman. This time, French spy Alec de Payns is tasked with safely escorting a North Korean defector, who claims to have knowledge of a cyberattack which could destroy the global economy. When the defector dies in his arms before sharing crucial intel, the failure attracts the ire of his superiors, and it isn't long before another mission unravels. Suddenly, Alec is hung out to dry. He finds himself alone, hunted across South-East Asia and forced to rely on tradecraft to stay ahead of both the law and the lawless, on a solo mission to protect his family from retribution, and root out a sinister conspiracy that wants him dead. It's another fast-paced, high-octane contemporary spy novel from Beaumont, sure to please existing fans of the series and attract new ones into the fold. Eden Mark Brandi Hachette, $32.99 Ex-con Tom Blackburn has been inside for nine years, serving time for accessory to murder. Upon his release, his already narrow chances at rebuilding a life dwindle through further misfortune. He winds up sleeping rough and, following a tip, heads to the Melbourne General Cemetery to find somewhere among the graves. There, he encounters the overseer of the grounds, Cyril, and lucks onto a job as a casual caretaker, with a roof over his head to boot. But the past isn't done with Tom. A journalist is piqued by the mystery of how he came to be involved in the crime that sent him to jail, with questions that bring danger and trauma to the surface. Meanwhile, Cyril offers him a Faustian bargain that could turn what at first, seemed to be a source of sanctuary into a hellish position indeed. Melbourne – and particularly, its famed cemetery – are vividly depicted in Mark Brandi's Eden, and the novel explores gritty social and ethical problems with more intelligence and conscience than most crime fiction. Climbing in Heels Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas Corvus, $34.99 The hottest talent agency in 1980s Hollywood is about to get a shake-up. Three young secretaries are on the rise – fast-talking Valley Girl Beanie Rosen; posh and well-connected English beauty Mercedes Baxter; and Ella Gaddy, a blueblood from Kentucky – and they're determined to stake a claim in what remains solidly Mad Men territory. They'll execute a hostile takeover… or resort to tricks that make the Hollywood swamp so slimy, if that's what it takes. The tale of ambitious women in the pre-#Me Too Hollywood landscape could have been fascinating. Unfortunately, the book droops languidly in the middle, there's rather a lot of not-very-well-written sex in it, and the author seems to become sidetracked by the hedonism and corruption (and big hair) of '80s Hollywood, without advancing the plot. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has come up with a promising idea for a female friends and avengers narrative – the protagonists become almost the Charlie's Angels of Hollywood talent agents – but it's let down in the execution. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation Curated by Jennie Orchard Scribe, $35 'Good luck hides inside bad luck.' Novelist Nguyen Phan Que Mai knows this Vietnamese proverb to be true. When creditors came to claim her family's possessions, the only things they didn't seize were her books. During the dark time that followed, reading became her refuge. In these essays, writers reflect on the books that captured their imaginations when they were young and how they try to instil a passion for reading in the next generation. For Tristan Bancks, a storyteller for page and screen, life changed forever at the age of seven when he and some friends found Where Did I Come From? on the bookshelf. It was, they thought, 'the funniest, weirdest, most mind-boggling book on the planet.' He showed it to more friends and in this way reading became a communal and subversive pursuit. Helping kids fall under the spell of books has never been more urgent. Recent reports show reading for pleasure among children has slumped in Australia. This inspiring collection testifies to the life-changing power of books in a child's life. Plain Life. On thinking, feeling and deciding Antonia Pont NewSouth, $34.99 The word 'plain' is so wonderfully at odds with our flashy, extreme, hungry times. To live a plain life, says Antonia Pont, is to decide that your life is intrinsically 'enough'. This is not a form of low expectations or political acquiescence. If anything, it is a refusal of neoliberalism and the penetration of marketplace values into every aspect of life. As such a stance suggests, Plain Life is not a self-help book offering easily digestible rules for living. Pont's elliptical, playful, philosophical style requires readers slow down and observe the workings of their own minds, be curious about the fears they've suppressed and dare to feel them, and become aware of how they collude in their own misery. Drawing on her practice as a yoga teacher, she urges us to stay in the middle of our experience, the place where we can 'take a tiny holiday from a fixed perspective' and find a vast freedom in that. While this is not a straightforward read, the demands of Plain Life are well worth the effort. The Eagle & the Crow JM Field UQP, $24.99 This is not a book that lends itself to synopsis. In fact, it actively resists the reductive nature of such an enterprise. JM Field, a Gamilaraay man, is primarily speaking to his own people about their kinship system and how it endures in practice and in the 'libraries' held in the heads of Aunties. The system remains robust, he says because 'the architects of it, our old people, created a way of relating, and therefore organising, that colonisation could not break.' While general readers cannot expect to fathom the intricate mathematical nature of this kinship system because they are not of it and have not imbibed it through community, we are left with a better understanding of the complexity and vitality of Indigenous relations and the limits of our own world view. Field combines pithy, poetic statements with a series of essays that contrast Western approaches to knowledge as distinct disciplines 'ripped from context' and Indigenous knowledge in which kinship systems allow for 'participation in something much larger than ourselves.' As you'd expect, there are some dramatic rescue stories in this collection of tales from surf lifesavers. But it's the community, camaraderie and competition surf clubs provide that dominate these yarns. A recurring theme from club elders, many of whom remember the days of the old reel and line, is the thrill of surf-boat races, particularly the George Bass Surf Boat Marathon covering 200 kilometres along the NSW's south coast. A lifesaver from Darwin was 65 when she was asked to join a crew for the event. As she observes with laconic understatement, it was a challenge given the 'dubious ocean conditions' but 'it turned out okay'. This kind of grit is typical of these stories, along with a larrikin spirit and sense of humour. Many people, says John Baker, national president of Surf Lifesaving Australia, think 'we're just a mob of fit people hanging around the beach, wearing funny red and yellow caps', when they are, in fact, a well-trained emergency service dealing with all sorts of trauma. One of the many dissonances of the dingo story is that while Australians were happy to demonise this canine for preying on livestock, we were still ready to believe that Lindy Chamberlain, rather than a dingo, killed her baby. The dingo became an official outlaw after the passing of The Native Dogs Destruction Act in 1875, and it was said that it would be a blessing when this 'untameable brute' was made extinct. When Mark Twain came to Australia 20 years later, he saw a very different creature – 'shapely, graceful, a little wolfish but with a most friendly eye and sociable disposition.' Long before the arrival of Europeans, the dingo had a close relationship with Aboriginal people and had been incorporated into their Dreaming as a spiritual icon. In this history of the dingo, Roland Breckwoldt charts our evolving understanding of this now-threatened native animal.
