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family live in an inland town called
Itabuna, and time there is spent with
cousins, aunts, uncles and my 104-year-
old grand-dad, playing games by the
pool and eating jackfruit.
In recent years I’ve found so much
love and appreciation for Brazilian art,
design and architecture, especially that
of Oscar Niemeyer, who designed
hundreds of key buildings throughout
Brazil over several decades. Those
inside Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo are
favourites, as is the Niterói
Contemporary Art Museum (a location
for Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 17 show),
perched on the edge of a hill right by the
water in the outskirts of Rio. The futuristic
museum is a visual feast, and visiting is
almost a cinematic experience.
Similarly, flying into São Paulo is insane- the horizon looks like a sea of tall grey
buildings as far as your eyes can see, so
it feels like you’re landing in an alternate
world made of concrete.
My favourite place to stay is Fasano
São Paulo (fasano.com.br), in a swanky
area of the city called Jardins, designed
by Brazilian architects Isay Weinfeld
and Márcio Kogan, with a modern take
on ‘30s and ‘40s design. If I could live in
the hotel forever, I would.E
only one on the beach. I more recently
fell in love with the rugged west coast
beaches. The surf is often too strong to go
past your knees and the black sand is too
hot to walk on in summer.
The destinations are as beautiful as
any I’ve seen – both during my time
spent living in Europe as a child and
now predominantly living in New York.
Even after a 24-hour journey, I’m
blessed to call New Zealand my
spiritual home.THE
SECOND HOMEBRAZIL
KIRI-UNA BRITO MEUMANN,
ARTIST
I’ve been travelling to Brazil every year
since I was a baby, and every time I go
I see a little bit more and fall even deeper
in love with it. For the last few years, my
boyfriend and I have flown in to either
São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, spending
three or four days there taking in the city,
before heading to Ilhéus, a city in Bahia
in the north-east, to be close to my family.
I consider Bahia my home state
(despite being born in Melbourne,
I spent a lot of my childhood there); it’s
like nowhere else in Brazil. It’s where
bossa nova originated, but it’s not just
the music capital – there are incredible
beaches and food (as well as
caipirinhas aplenty), and the relaxed
lifestyle is inimitable. Salvador is
a Portuguese colony, and discovering
the colonial architecture, hidden among
tropical greenery, is truly magical. My“Every time
I go I fall even
deeper in
love with it”- KIRI-UNA BRITO
MEUMANN
TRAVEL
@kiribiriiTHEHOMEWARD JOURNEY
NEW ZEALAND
GEORGIA FOWLER, MODELHaving travelled for a larger part of my
life than not, landing back into Aotearoa
(the Maori name for New Zealand), the
land of the long white cloud brings
a calm of nowhere else. It is just that
- a large fluffy and mystical country, filled
with the freshest air, greenest forests, wild
seas and the most down-to-earth,
hardworking and happy population. It’s
where I find my whanau (family) and in
turn, my roots.
Growing up in New Zealand, my
childhood was filled with sport, ocean
swims and family dinners of fresh fish
reeled in that day by one of my uncles. In
winter, weekends were spent on road
trips to the mountain for a ski trip, and in
summer, to a seaside destination, with my
mum pointing out epiphytes along the
way (with a pit stop at a service station for
a classic meat pie, of course).
We were regulars in the Coromandel
Peninsula, where shoes were optional,
and where you’ll often find yourself the
@georgiafowler