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LETTERS@FRANKIE.COM.AU Dear frankie, I have been collecting your magazines for years, and they are such a joy and inspiration in my daily life. Last night, I hosted a vision boarding night to celebrate the Pākehā new year in Aotearoa New Zealand, with frankie as the star of the show. Thank you for being the launch pad for us to discuss our hopes, dreams and fears for 2026! Sophie Hey, frankie, I always love reading your magazine, and one story that’s really stuck with me is the one on clouds, issue 128, and not just because of the beautiful illustrations. I learnt so much from it – wow, I had no idea that an average cumulus cloud weighed about the same as a jumbo jet! I’ve been boring people about it…

DRY RUN Stupid us – for as long as we can remember, we’ve been drying our bods with boring old plain towels, or nifty striped numbers when we’re feeling wild. All along, we could have been wrapping our just-out-of-the-shower selves in a nice soft bit of bathroom artwork inspired by Australia’s Top End – a collab between Italian brand Missoni and Australian designer Fiona Spence. We just need to fork out $230. fathom.com.au CREASE SPOT Are you avoiding a large section of your wardrobe because it requires ironing? Same. I haven’t worn a shirt since 2015. It’s simply Too Much. Well, get ready to pull out that cute button-down because with this Uncrumpled clothing spray, $33, you’re gonna get rid of those creases without having to locate the iron, let…

My grandmother Audrey, who was born in 1922, had a great sense of humour – one of my favourite things to do was to make her laugh. Her father was a musician; she would accompany him with her accordion, and they’d play at bars around the Norwegian-American community in South Minneapolis. She married my grandfather when she was in her early 20s – prior to that, she was very proud of having been an executive secretary. She didn’t work out of the home after she’d had a couple of children – she was very focused on her family, her friends and her community. She loved dancing. In the 1960s, she began collecting wool skirts and continued into the ’90s. She bought all of them secondhand from thrift stores close to…

Like many women who came of age in the ’90s and ’00s, I’ve inherited a particularly cruel inner voice when it comes to my image. I remember a time before I started judging my body, when looking in the mirror was about deciding whether I liked the pattern on the floral bike shorts I had chosen or if the fluorescent pink of my t-shirt sparked joy that day. I was 11 when I started judging how clothes hugged my new curves, and I haven’t been able to recapture that unjudgmental feeling since. As I approach 40, my attention has slowly shifted from my body to my face, pulled there by the relentless glare of society’s anti-ageing obsession. Every line, sunspot and sag seems to demand a critique, and though I…

Rising at dawn for a quiet moment before work? Fighting jetlag? Burrowing into bed with the evening stretched out ahead? We’ve curated a guide of eight books matched to your sleeping patterns, whatever they may be. From mesmerising late-night encounters in Tokyo diners to wild swimming adventures across the British Isles, each book will understand exactly when you’ve opened them. THE DAWN RISING – 5AM Waterlog by Roger Deakin The sun’s just starting to get up. It’s hours before anyone else stirs, maybe 45 minutes before the cat screams “Breakfast, maid!” If dawn is your usual waking hour, you know time moves differently here. Roger Deakin is a writer who captures this quality in brilliant, microscopic detail. In Waterlog, he embarks on a swimming journey across the British Isles –…

The thudding ache of your index finger wedged between the car door and hell. The soreness in your glutes following a spirited Zumba class. Pain is universal, unavoidable and strangely personal – we all feel it differently. Heck, some of us even seek it out. We take a look at the fundamentals of pain, and chat to experts about some of the more curious aspects of pain. WHAT IS PAIN? For many moons, the world’s greatest minds believed pain to be a sensation that occurred in response to injury or tissue damage. Some have even considered it a spiritual experience, a process people must endure to form a higher connection. Dr Tasha Stanton, associate professor of clinical pain neuroscience at Adelaide University, explains that pain is a natural bodily experience…

Hello, can you please tell us a bit about yourself. I’m a Tasmanian photographer and filmmaker working primarily with ocean and landscape. My work sits somewhere between documentary, conservation and personal storytelling. Alongside photography, I run Tasman Cottage at Eaglehawk Neck/Teralina on the Tasman Peninsula, which operates as both an artist retreat and short-stay accommodation. Have you always lived in Tasmania, and what do you love about it? I’m Tasmanian born and raised. For most of my twenties, I lived in and out of a van, travelling for surf, photography and work, but whenever I was home, I’d spend long stretches of time down on the Tasman Peninsula. That coastline always pulled me back. It felt raw and uncompromising, but also deeply grounding. How and when did you find the…

If you’re anything like me, having the rules of a board game explained might make you want to eat a plate of habanero chillies or jump into crocodile-infested waters just to escape the torturous pain of having to listen to someone read from the tiny book of instructions. However, once I’m into a game, I’m fully in and as competitive as they come (I have road rage but for board games), because games are actually a roaringly good time. You just need a little bit of organisation and the tiniest sprinkle of patience and games nights will soon become your favourite activity. As part of my New Year’s resolution to be more social – while still being stuck at home with two tiny agents of destruction – I’ve started organising…

Hello, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and talk about where you work. Hi, I have my own brand ROE, under which I create textiles and other products. I was born, live and work in Prague, where I have my own small studio-showroom, where people can visit me, look at my products and buy something. It is such a tiny colourful place, full of patterned fabrics, threads, yarns, finished clothes and other products. In addition to this showroom-studio, I also go to a shared workshop where I create and print patterns on fabrics, and work on ceramics. It is such an inspiring place where my friends and I create everything from illustration, animation and textiles to wood and ceramics. Both of these places are very important…