Jim Clark's Australian Honey

In the Australian Women's Weekly this month, my interview with supermodel Kristy Hinze about her relationship with Netscape founder Jim Clark. Here's a sample:

When the story broke that Jim Clark’s Australian “honey” was Kristy Hinze, there was the usual cynicism about a thrice-married billionaire hooking up with a gorgeous, younger model. (He is now 63 and she is 28). His divorce from third wife Nancy had cost him a $US125 million settlement, and had been all over the papers. Plus Clark was no ordinary billionaire. The subject of a recent book, The New, New Thing by Michael Lewis, he is an undoubted genius who has redefined American culture, from the high-tech movies of Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas to the way we get our information and do our shopping.

“At first sight he looks avuncular, with thinning white hair, wire-rimmed spectacles and a lovely smile,” writes John Naughton. “Behind the amiable façade is the nearest thing Silicon Valley has to a force of nature, an ungovernable, relentless, mercurial, capricious, inventive character who transformed the computing industry, spawned the internet boom and eats bankers for breakfast.”

I read this quote to Kristy as we’re sitting in the courtyard of her Sydney hotel. She is en route to Melbourne, where she is taking part in the Melbourne Fashion Festival in her role as brand ambassador to iconic fashion label Sportscraft and for pre-production on Australia’s version of the fashion reality show Project Runway, which she will host and which starts shooting in April. Golden-haired and golden-skinned, with those amazing green sloe eyes, she’s very much a goddess, even in jeans and white shirt - but a very earthy one, with her throaty laugh and pragmatic view of the world. “That’s Jim!” she laughs when I finish reading the quote. “It’s perfect. He is relentless and ungovernable, for sure! That’s what makes him so amazing.”

She has been reluctant to talk about her private life in the past but today she seems very relaxed about it and happy to sing the praises of “my boyfriend,” as she calls him. “I never thought I was going to date an older man when I first met him,” she says. “I wasn’t chasing him by any means. For me it was different to hang out with someone with something to say that was so interesting and important and who was really, truly incredibly intelligent.” Besides, she adds, “He’s handsome and he’s got so much charisma and he’s so funny. He’s very normal and down to earth. He’s an incredible man and I just love him.”

Something in the Water

The Lake House in Daylesford, Victoria, repeatedly gets awarded Australia's best country hotel. And the mineral spring at its front door is pretty invigorating too... Daylesford is my idea of a perfect country town. Read about taking the waters in this picturesque part of Australia in travel my story in The Australian magazine, published last weekend.

Not the kitten heel... the kitten head

From my Deeply Superficial column in the March (sydney) and (melbourne) magazines:

Twice in my life I’ve fallen foul of the haircutter’s scissors and found myself sitting nervously in a salon chair as I watch my long hair being slashed to half an inch of its life. I’m sure that I was a Weimar Republic cabaret artist in another life and the urge to chop the locks into a Liza Minnelli-as-Sally Bowles bob (foolish for a blonde) becomes irrepressible sometimes. Hairdressers are amazingly quick to pounce on their clients’ identity crises and so I have twice ended up with horror cuts that, far from accentuating my divine decadence, made me look like a refugee from a bingo hall. I think we have all been there.

Let me say at this point, lest my hairdresser of 25 years gets upset, that these two occasions were outside his jurisdiction. These days, whenever I feel like a radical change – that is, short hair - he just rolls his eyes and refuses to budge. Bless him. But, fortunately, in 2008, if I do ever find myself succumbing to a brain short-circuit and demanding a Liza Minnelli, I can always call on Jessica Simpson to reverse the damage.

Hair extensions have always seemed to me rather terrifying. The type that is glued and bonded to the hair surely can’t be good for it. And the weaves, which are preferable, always remind me of a balding doll I had as a child and the way her hair was brutally stitched into her plastic scalp. But I suppose, if I try very hard, I can see the attraction in it, especially for women (let’s not even think about the men) with thin hair or those who need an Instant Rapunzel for a wedding or big night out. No one wants to wait for anything these days, let alone five years for hair to grow, so two or three hours in a salon chair reading international Vogues and sipping sparkling water seems like a breeze.

In an unfamiliar salon the other week I was shocked to see the number of chairs filled with young women having extensions sewn in. Each of them glowed with the bright wattage that comes from feeling sexy about their new look. But I couldn’t help feeling there was something creepy about it, just as I find nail extensions creepy. Occasionally, I have been sent clip-on hair extensions to try, such as those from Diva, and they’re all very clever, but ultimately they lie around the house, unused, like golden, baby ferrets.

So when the invitation came to have a HairDo™ salon clip-on extension from Jessica Simpson (you mean all that blonde hair is not hers?) cut and fitted by Anthony Nader at Sydney’s Raw, I thought I should open my mind and take up the offer. After all, unlike the permanent extensions, I could always just take it out.

In fact, the 21-inch long, 100% human hair extension is exceptionally easy to clip on and clip off. Initially, you need to purchase it from a salon, select the colour from 13 options and have the piece shaped to blend with your own hair. It’s all extremely simple – the long hair is woven onto one form, rather like a wig, and once you make a section through your hair and pin the length up, it attaches with seven very secure clips. The natural hair blends well and in theory it looks completely natural.

But here’s the thing, and maybe it’s just me – it doesn’t feel completely natural. It’s lightweight and yet my own hair, pinned in a bun underneath, felt lumpy under the fall. It was as if a small kitten had attached itself to the back of my scalp and wouldn’t let go. On top of that, a monsoonal rain came down as I left the salon and it felt like a very damp kitten had attached itself to me. It itched. I couldn’t wait to get home and get it off.

I willing to accept that for someone with fine or short hair these things are godsends, but for me the extension has become another abandoned critter in my bathroom menagerie.