If You Still Need to Fly Amid the Global Travel Chaos, Here’s What to Know

The war in the Middle East has important implications for how air travel functions right now and in the future. 

By Steven Leib

We are now three weeks into the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, which has grown to engulf much of the Middle East. There are few signs the conflict will slow down or stop anytime soon.

The situation has upended air travel. Missile and drone strikes have affected major airports, key routes through the Middle East have been shut down and the cost of jet fuel has shot up.

For airlines, these factors mean higher operating costs and reduced capacity. For many travellers, that means fewer options and higher prices.

Some travellers may be in a position to revise, delay or cancel upcoming travel plans. But many others who need to fly for work or personal reasons face high costs or may even be considering complex, unorthodox routes.

There are some important implications for how global air travel functions, right now and in the future. But there are also some general practical tips for ordinary travellers to help navigate the uncertainty.

Jet fuel costs soar

For virtually every airline in the world, fuel and labour represent the two highest costs. Since the beginning of the conflict, severe energy market disruption means the average jet fuel price has nearly doubled, with little indication relief is on the way.

And it’s possible the global energy market crisis could escalate further, as gas plants and gas fields in Qatar and Iran come under attack.

Right now, because of the increase in fuel prices for many airlines, jet fuel has likely surged to become the number-one cost (if it wasn’t already).

What’s happening with airfares?

Fuel costs aren’t the only factor. For Australians looking to travel to or through the Middle East, the removal of millions of airline seats from flight schedules has pushed serious demand onto other routes.

Unsurprisingly, many major airlines have hiked their international fares significantly. And they may go up further still. Qantas, for instance, this week said it would review its international airfares every two weeks.

Airfares have spiked as a result of the conflict. Hanson Lu/Unsplash

Some tickets have appeared at an extraordinarily high price. Cathay Pacific attracted attention for advertising business class tickets from Sydney to London (via Hong Kong) for close to A$40,000 return.

This is obviously very expensive. However, it is a natural result of the way most airlines use “dynamic pricing”. In essence, airlines are trying to identify (typically by analysing your flight searches) the highest price you’re willing to pay, so they can sell you a ticket at that price.

In a crisis, some might see this as taking advantage of vulnerable passengers. But airlines could argue the system ensures there is a seat there for someone who desperately needs it.

Unfortunately, they rely on the price consumers are willing to pay to demonstrate that level of “need”.

Stuck in a holding pattern

More broadly, the conflict has dramatically altered airlines’ ability to predict their costs. That’s a problem, because seats are usually for sale up to nearly a year in advance.

Will we see a shift in popular flight routes around the world if this conflict drags on? It’s hard to say.

The Middle East is geographically well-positioned to access nearly the entire world with a non-stop flight. It sits at the intersection of several popular international travel corridors, and its airline ownership models typically include government backing (which can help carriers stay operationally and financially stable).

However, if this conflict threatens those advantages in the long term, other airlines may step in, perhaps able to lower their fares over time by boosting their capacity.

Going the longer way around

Airlines based in Asia are particularly well placed to serve Australians travelling to Europe, though high demand for these routes has driven up airfares.

Another option is to sequence together multiple tickets on different carriers. This can lower costs and may add an element of “adventure”.

However, there are some significant risks that could undo any cost savings. For one, the “extras” can really add up. A sequence of self-organised tickets often means additional expenses for:

• overnight transits
• multiple baggage fees
• more meals on the road.

Travellers should also be mindful of visa requirements in transit countries, and any visa fees that apply.

Crucially, the “do-it-yourself” approach often means you are not protected from the impacts of delays or cancellations across multiple tickets on different airlines.

Other general tips

For those who are planning travel in the next couple of months, most carriers based in the Middle East are selling tickets with a reduced flight schedule to accommodate operational restrictions.

But given ongoing uncertainty, these schedules may not be as reliable as passengers would typically expect.

Buying flexible fares and travel insurance can help alleviate the effects of travel disruptions. But they introduce added costs.

What about those already booked, but anxious about whether they’ll be able to fly? Some airlines have cancellation or rebooking policies for passengers affected by the conflict for travel within a specified window of time.

Airlines may offer fee waivers, free rebooking or penalty-free cancellations.

But those whose dates aren’t eligible shouldn’t proactively cancel their flights themselves. Waiting for the airline to formally say, “we can’t take you there” gives you the best chance of ensuring it remains responsible for rebooking, a refund and other accommodations.

Steven Leib, Associate Professor in Aviation, CQUniversity Australia

From Sonata to Sensation: How 19th-Century Virtuoso Franz Liszt Invented Pop Stardom

A portrait of the highly expressive composer Franz Liszt, who drove his audiences into delirium when he performed, painted by Henri Lehmann at the height of Lisztomania in 1839. 

By Timothy McKenry

In 1844, Berlin was struck by a cultural fever critics labelled Lisztomania. The German poet Heinrich Heine coined the term after witnessing the almost delirious reception that greeted Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt in concert halls across Europe.

One widely circulated drawing from the 1840s crystallises the image. Women swoon or faint, others hurl flowers toward the stage. Men also appear to be struck by the pianist’s magnetic presence (or perhaps by the women’s reaction to it).These caricatured depictions, when paired with antagonistic reviews from contemporary critics, may still shape our cultural memory of Liszt.

He is often depicted not simply as a musician but as the first modern celebrity to unleash mass hysteria.

This 1840s drawing captures

Lisztomania in action with 

a swooning audience of 

women. Theodor Hosemann.

What happened at Liszt’s concerts?

We know a great deal about Liszt’s hundreds of concerts during the 1830s and ‘40s, thanks to reviews, critiques, lithographs and Liszt’s own letters from the time.

His programs combined works by the great composers with his own inventive reworkings of pieces familiar to audiences. Virtuoso showpieces also demonstrated his command of the piano.

Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata or Pathétique Sonata might appear alongside Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, performed in Liszt’s highly expressive style.

Schubert was represented through songs such as Erlkönig and Ave Maria, reworked for piano alone.

Liszt also turned to the most popular operatic works of his time. His Réminiscences de Norma (Bellini) and Réminiscences de Don Juan (Mozart) transformed familiar melodies into large-scale fantasies. These demanded both virtuosity and lyrical sensitivity.

In these works, Liszt created symphonic structures on the piano. He wove multiple themes into coherent musical dramas far more than simple medleys of well-known tunes.

Liszt often closed his concerts with the crowd-pleaser Grand Galop Chromatique. This encore demonstrated his showmanship and awareness of audience expectations.

As critic Paul Scudo wrote in 1850:

He is the sovereign master of his piano; he knows all its resources; he makes it speak, moan, cry, and roar under fingers of steel, which distil nervous fluid like Volta’s battery distils electrical fluid.

His audience’s response, it would seem, regularly spilled beyond the conventions of polite concert etiquette and social decorum.

Another Romantic portrait of Liszt

by Friedrich von Amerling in 1838.

Artist and showman

In a series of 1835 essays titled On the Situation of Artists, Liszt presents musicians such as himself as “tone artists”, condemned to be misunderstood. Nevertheless, they have a profound obligation to “reveal, exalt and deify all the tendencies of human consciousness”.

At the same time, a letter to the novelist George Sand reveals Liszt was acutely aware of the practicalities of concerts and the trappings of celebrity.

He jokes that Sand would be surprised to see his name in capital letters on a Paris concert bill. Liszt admits to the audacity of charging five francs for tickets instead of three, basks in glowing reviews, and notes the presence of aristocrats and high society in his audience.

He even describes his stage draped with flowers, and hints at the female attention following one performance, albeit directed toward his partner in a duet.

This letter shows an artist who is self-aware, sometimes amused, and sometimes ambivalent about the spectacle attached to his art.

Yes, Liszt engaged with his celebrity identity, but clearly also felt a measure of distance from it. He was aware the serious side of his art risked being overshadowed by the gossip-column version.

Much of the music criticism of the time functioned in exactly this way. It was little more than the work of gossip writers, many disgusted by the intensity of audience reactions to Liszt’s performances.

Gossip, poison pens, and the making of Lisztomania

Not everyone shared the enthusiasm of Liszt’s audiences. Some critics attacked both his playing and the adulation it provoked.

In 1842, a writer using the pseudonym Beta described the combined effect of Liszt’s performance and the public’s response, writing that:

the effect of his bizarre, substance-less, idea-less, sensually exciting, contrast-ridden, fragmented playing, and the diseased enthusiasm over it, is a depressing sign of the stupidity, the insensitivity, and the aesthetic emptiness of the public.

Similarly, poet Heinrich Heine suggested Liszt’s performance style was deliberately “stage managed” and designed to provoke audience mania:

For example, when he played a thunderstorm on the fortepiano, we saw the lightning bolts flicker over his face, his limbs shook as if in a gale, and his long tresses seemed to drip, as it were, from the downpour that was represented.

These and other accounts fed the mythology of Lisztomania, portraying women in his audience as irrational and hysterical.

The term mania carried a medicalised, pathologising tone, framing enthusiasm for Liszt as a form of cultural sickness.

Lithographs, caricatures, and anecdotal reports amplified these narratives, showing swooning figures, flowers hurled on stage, and crowds behaving in ways that exceeded polite social convention.

Yet these accounts are not entirely trustworthy; they were shaped by prejudice, moralising assumptions, and a desire to sensationalise.

Liszt’s concerts, therefore, existed at a fascinating intersection: extraordinary artistry and virtuosity, coupled with the theatre of audience reception, all filtered through a lens of gossip, exaggeration and gendered panic.

In this sense, the phenomenon of Lisztomania foreshadows the dynamics of modern celebrity. (It was also the subject of what one critic described as “the most embarrassing historical film ever made”.)

Just as performers like the Beatles, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift provoke intense public devotion while simultaneously facing slander and sensational reporting, Liszt’s fame was inseparable from both admiration and the poison pen of his critics.

Timothy McKenry, Professor of Music, Australian Catholic University

Frank Gehry, the Architect of the Unconventional, the Accidental, and the Inspiring

The sinuous forms of Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Photograph: Sean Pavone/Getty Images. Cover picture of the architect's Guggenheim Museum and Bilbao River. Photograph: Maremagnum/Getty Images.

By Michael I. Ostwald

Architect Frank Gehry in his studio

with models of his designs. 

In April 2005, The Simpsons featured an episode where Marge, embarrassed by her hometown’s reputation for being uneducated and uncultured, invites a world-famous architect to design a new concert hall for the city.

The episode cuts to the architect, Frank Gehry (playing himself), outside his house in Santa Monica, receiving Marge’s letter. 

He is frustrated by the request and crumples the letter, throwing it to the ground. Looking down, the creased and ragged paper inspires him, and the episode cuts to a model of his concert hall for Springfield, which copies the shape of the crumpled letter. 

By building Gehry’s design, the people of Springfield hoped to send a signal to the world that a new era of culture had arrived. As it often did, this episode of The Simpsons references a real-life phenomenon, which Gehry was credited with triggering, the “Bilbao effect”.

In 1991, the city of Bilbao in northern Spain sought to enhance its economic and cultural standing by establishing a major arts centre. Gehry was commissioned to design the Bilbao Guggenheim, proposing a 57-metre-high building, a spiralling vortex of titanium and glass, along the banks of the Nervión River

Using software developed for aerospace industries, Gehry designed a striking, photogenic building, sharply contrasting with the city’s traditional stone and masonry streetscapes.

Finished in 1997, the response to Gehry’s building was overwhelming. Bilbao was transformed into an international tourist destination, revitalising the city and boosting its cultural credentials and economic prospects. As a result, many cities tried to reproduce the so-called “Bilbao effect” by combining iconic architecture and the arts to encourage a cultural renaissance.

Gehry, who has died at 96, leaves a powerful legacy, visible in many major cities, in the media, in galleries and in popular culture.

Guggenheim Museum, Avenida Abandoibarra, Bilbao, Spain. Elizabeth Hanchett/Unsplash

An architect’s life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, in 1929 and emigrated to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, where he changed his surname to Gehry. He studied architecture and urban planning and established a successful commercial practice in 1962.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s, when he began experimenting with alterations and additions to his own house, that he began to develop his signature approach to architecture. An approach that was both visionary and confronting.

Gehry and his son, Alejandro, in the yard in front of his self-designed home, Santa Monica, California, January 1980. Susan Wood/Getty Images

In 1977, Gehry purchased a colonial bungalow on a typical suburban street in Santa Monica. Soon after, he began peeling back its cladding and exposing its structural frame. He added a jumble of plywood panels, corrugated metal walls, and chain-link fencing, giving the impression of a house in a perpetual state of demolition or reconstruction.

Its fragmented, unfinished expression offended the neighbours but also led to his being exhibited in the landmark 1988 Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture show.

At this event, Gehry’s house was featured alongside a range of subversive, anti-establishment works, catapulting him to international fame.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, United States of America. Tim Cheung/Unsplash

Unlike other architects featured in the exhibition – such as Coop Himmelblau, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind – Gehry was not driven by a political or philosophical stance. Instead, he was interested in how people would react to the experience of architecture.

It was only after the Bilbao Guggenheim was completed that the world could see this vision.

Throughout the 2000s, Gehry completed a range of significant buildings, led by the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in Los Angeles, which has a similar style to the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Gehry’s Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle is a composition of anodised purple, gold, silver and sky-blue forms, resembling the remnants of a smashed electric guitar.

Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle, Washington, United States of America. Getty Images

The Marqués de Riscal Vineyard Hotel (2006) in Elciego, Spain, features steel ribbons in Burgundy-pink and Verdelho-gold. The Louis Vuitton Foundation (2014) in Paris has 12 large glass sails, swirling around an “iceberg” of concrete panels.

Gehry only completed one building in Australia, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building (2014) in Sydney. Its design, an undulating form clad in custom-made bricks, was inspired by a crumpled brown paper bag. Marge Simpson would have approved.

Recognition and reflection

The highest global honour an architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize, often called the “Nobel prize for architecture”. Gehry was awarded this prize in 1989, with the jury praising his “controversial, but always arresting body of work” which was “iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent”.

While the Pritzker Prize is often regarded as a capstone for a career, most of Gehry’s major works were completed after the award.

Tempranillo vines surround the hotel at Marqués de Riscal winery, Elciego, Spain. David Silverman/Getty Images

Gehry revelled in experimentation, taking artistic inspiration from complex natural forms and constructing them using advanced technology. Over the last three decades, his firm continued to produce architecture that was both strikingly sculptural and playfully whimsical.

He ultimately regretted appearing on The Simpsons, feeling it devalued the complex process he followed. His architecture was not random; an artist’s eye guided it, and a sculptor’s hand created it. It was not just any crumpled form, but the perfect one for each site and client.

He sometimes joked about completing his home in Santa Monica, even humorously ending his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Prize by saying he might use his prize money to do this. Today, on the corner of 22nd Street and Washington Avenue, partly shielded by trees, Gehry’s house remains forever a work in progress. Its uncompromising yet joyful presence has endured for almost 50 years.

Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney

Why Does it Feel So Hard to Work Out in the Morning? Here are Some Scientific Reasons Why

You are not imagining it, there are good reasons why it feels so difficult to workout in the morning.

By Hunter Bennett, University of South Australia

Your alarm goes off. Somehow you manage to get dressed, drag yourself to the gym, and start squatting.But why does it feel so hard? Your legs are heavy and the weight you lifted only a couple of days ago – in the afternoon – feels almost impossible.

No, you’re not imagining it. There’s a large body of evidence to suggest most of us are stronger, more powerful, and have better endurance later in the day.

There are several reasons exercising can feel much harder first thing in the morning. Here’s why, and how you can adjust to morning exercise if you need to.

Your circadian rhythm affects your workout

Your body has a natural 24-hour clock that regulates hormones, body temperature and when you feel most awake or ready for sleep.

This clock is called your circadian rhythm. It is controlled by the brain but can also be influenced by external factors such as sunlight. This might explain why exercising in the morning in winter can be especially hard for some of us.

Research shows your circadian rhythm is clearly linked to exercise performance, which tends to follow a daily pattern.

Most people reach their peak between 4 and 7pm. This means we tend to be stronger, faster and more powerful in the afternoon and early evening.

We don’t know exactly why. But there are a few potential explanations.

Matt Garrow/The Conversation. Adapted from Delos, CC BY

Body temperature

Your core body temperature is at its lowest around 5am, and steadily increases across the day. When your body temperature rises, your muscles contract more efficiently. We think this is part of the reason people are typically stronger and more powerful later in the day.

Hormonal fluctuations

Insulin – the hormone that regulates blood sugar (glucose) levels – tends to be highest in the morning. This leads to a decrease in blood sugar, meaning less glucose your body can use as fuel, likely affecting how hard you can push.

Nervous system function

While we don’t know exactly why, there is some evidence to suggest your nervous system is better at sending signals to your muscles throughout the day. This allows you to use more of your muscle fibres during exercise, essentially making you stronger.

But what if I’m a morning person?

Your sleep chronotype can also affect exercise performance.

This describes your natural inclination for sleep and wakefulness at certain parts of the day – basically whether you’re a “morning person” (an “early bird”), or feel more productive and alert in the evening (a “night owl”).

Research shows night owls with a late chronotype do notably worse when exercising in the morning, compared to people with an early chronotype.

While we don’t know why this is the case, it might be that night owls experience smaller fluctuations in hormones and temperature throughout the day – although this is just speculation.

Interestingly, being sleep deprived seems to affect physical performance in the afternoon more than in the morning. So if you’re staying up late and not getting much sleep, you may actually find it easier to exercise the next morning than the next afternoon.

So, does timing matter?

Whatever time of day, if you can feel yourself working you will make progress – for example, increasing muscle strength and improving aerobic fitness and heart health.

So if you’re exercising to get bigger, stronger and fitter, the timing doesn’t actually matter.

Besides, when we exercise often comes down to motivation and convenience. If you like to exercise earlier in the day and that suits you best, there’s no reason to change.

But you can adapt if you need

If you have a sporting event coming up in the morning – and you usually train in the afternoon – you might want to prepare by doing some early exercise so you’re at your peak.

There is evidence to suggest that repeatedly training in the morning can close the gap between your afternoon and morning performance.

Basically, your body can get used to exercising at a particular time, although it will likely take a few weeks to adapt.

Finally, if you find exercising close to bedtime makes you feel too alert and is disrupting your sleep, you may want to try doing something more gentle at night and/or exercising earlier in the day.

Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia

What the 2026 Oscars Revealed about the Current Political Mood in Hollywood

Javier Bardem wearing his blood red 'No a la Guerra' protest badge on stage at the Oscars with Priyanka Chopra. Photograph: Chris Torres/EPA. 

By Luis Freijo

The 2026 Academy Awards revealed a striking contradiction. Many of the winning films grapple with urgent contemporary issues, or difficult questions of historical memory. Yet their makers avoided following up on that political character in their acceptance speeches.

This paradox is revealing of the current political mood in Hollywood: filmmakers are willing to engage with politics in their work, but reluctant to raise their own voices.

It makes for a puzzling irony that contrasts with the attitude of, for instance, the music industry in the Grammy Awards. In a year of tariffs, Epstein files, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) shootings and military interventions in Venezuela and Iran, the show’s host, comedian Conan O’Brien, kept the political references contained to harmless jokes.

For instance, O’Brien mentioned the tighter security for the gala, appearing to reference the FBI’s warning of possible drone attacks against the US west coast. But the nod quickly revealed itself as a pun about actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent declaration that “no one cares” about ballet and opera.

Michael B Jordan accepts the Best Actor Oscar for

Sinners at the 98th Academy Awards in Hollywood.

Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images 

Even some of the more political speeches, such as Michael B. Jordan’s mention of the Black actors that preceded him when accepting the best actor Oscar, kept to industry boundaries.

Only comedian Jimmy Kimmel, whose show Jimmy Kimmel Live! has become strongly critical of President Donald Trump, obliquely mentioned his looming presence when presenting the best feature documentary award.

Politics of the nominated films

This attitude is glaringly detached from what this year’s nominees communicate in their films.

Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, poked at conspiracy theories through its kidnapping plot. The constant ping-pong hustle of Marty Supreme returned to the foundational moment of US capitalism in the 1950s and pointed out that it was already rotten way before Reaganomics and Trump. The Secret Agent, meanwhile, set its thriller story against the historical memory of the dictatorship in Brazil.

The two main winners of the night were also the most political films. Joyfully disguised behind the vampire film conventions and musical performances of Sinners lies a condemnation of ongoing racism in the US. But the film also proposes blues music as an alternative way to experience the world and create loving and protective connections between its inhabitants.

In this sense, Delroy Lindo’s performance as ageing blues singer Delta Slim centres the political core of the film. His retelling of a friend’s murder by lynching is first a lament, then rhythm and finally blues.

Lindo competed for best supporting actor against Sean Penn, whose winning work in One Battle After Another became relevant when it started to overlap with the media presence of Greg Bovino, commander-at-large of the US Border Patrol. Under Bovino’s command two US citizens were shot by Ice in Minneapolis in January.

Paul Thomas Anderson wins best director 

for One Battle After Another.

One Battle After Another recaptures the political spirit of 1970s US films such as The Three Days of the Condor (1975), Network (1976) and All the President’s Men (1976). These films reacted against the consequences of the Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon’s resignation in the 1970s. One Battle After Another brings to the present their activist attitude to oppose our contemporary political challenges.

The film’s chilling depiction of state violence against its own citizens connected with the events in Minneapolis and showed how relevant cinema can be when aimed at those in power. But the film had to speak for itself: its director, writer and producer, Paul Thomas Anderson, carefully avoided any direct mention of Trump, Ice or Minneapolis in his three acceptance speeches (for best adapted screenplay, director and film). And Sean Penn, whose political activism as a friend of Hugo Chávez or in favour of Ukraine has often made Hollywood uncomfortable, chose not to attend the ceremony.

Why nominees stayed silent

The reasons for the lack of politics at the awards may be found in the current industrial climate in the US. In September 2025, the Federal Communications Commission took Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air for a few days and continues to threaten to do it again. The industry chatter also believes Trump to be responsible for CBS’ decision to not renew The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, another critical outlet.

The possible acquisition, meanwhile, of Warner Bros. by Paramount, presided over by Trump’s ally David Ellison, follows Amazon’s purchase of MGM and Disney buying Twentieth Century Fox. The industrial landscape is concentrating in a handful of technological tycoons. They may may not take kindly to political activism when funding future projects.

One Battle After Another takes the Best Film Award

at the 2026 Oscars. Photograph: Chris Torres/EPA 

The only political voice that was pointedly raised in the Oscars this year belonged to Spanish actor Javier Bardem.

Bardem appeared on stage to present the best international picture award sporting a lapel that said: “No a la Guerra” – no to war. He had worn the same lapel over 20 years ago when the Spanish Film Academy Awards in 2003 became a loud and clear indictment to Spain’s involvement in the Iraq war.

Bardem left a clear message as he introduced the award: “No to war and Free Palestine.” While films such as this year’s extraordinary intake can and do speak for themselves, the gravity of the moment requires that those who make them join with their own voices.

Bardem’s dissonant appeal reveals where Hollywood’s politics currently lie. They are caught between making committed films and a fear of what the country’s politics will bring.

Luis Freijo, Research Associate in Film Studies, King's College London

'Buy it nice or buy it twice’: What the ‘Frugal Chic’ Trend Tells us About our Fashion Choices

Frugal chic means a commitment to purchases that will last for many years and be part of a 'forever wardrobe'. 

By Lorinda Cramer

The “frugal chic” aesthetic is having its moment, however contradictory the concept may seem. “Frugal” suggests a focus on thriftiness, while “chic” oozes a sense of classic luxury.

Coined by former model and content creator Mia McGrath before trending on TikTok, this is one of the latest attempts to change how we think about clothes and disrupt our voracious appetite for fashion.

McGrath encourages Gen Z to think about the positive aspects of making do with less. For her, being frugally chic refers to:

An individual who values quality, high taste, and freedom. They reject this new world of overconsumption that preys on the insecurities of unconscious doom scrollers.

Frugal chic means a commitment to purchases that will last for many years and be part of a “forever wardrobe”.

McGrath calls on consumers to invest in quality – “buy it nice or buy it twice” – while blending luxury purchases with cheaper and even thrifted clothes.

Slow fashion, repair cafes and capsule wardrobes

McGrath is not the first to try to influence change by promoting sustainable, responsible clothing consumption.

The global slow fashion movement supports individuals to (as the name suggests) slow down clothing purchases. But simply shopping less is easier said than done.

Slow fashion is driven by an increased awareness of the environmental and societal impact of the purchases we make. It also means forming a different, deeper relationship with our clothes.

Repair cafes set up in many countries (including Australia) further aid this work. They offer opportunities for people to fix their clothes – whether broken zips, missing buttons, rips, or something more complex – with the help of skilled repairers.

An uptick in “capsule wardrobes” has also been framed as a responsible choice. A capsule wardrobe encourages fewer classic, high-quality items in neutral colours as staples that can be worn interchangeably with each other and with bolder accent pieces.

Each of these matters as a counterpoint to what has become a massive problem: Australia’s spiralling consumption and discard rates.

Our passion for fashion

In 2024, Australians purchased 1.51 billion items of new clothing. That’s the equivalent of 55 garments for every person each year.

Many of those clothes don’t form part of a “forever wardrobe”. Across that same year, Australians sent 220,000 tonnes of castoffs to landfills. That’s 880 million items. A further 36 million items of unwanted clothing were shipped overseas, adding to mounting global landfills.

The production, consumption, use and disposal of clothing are emission-intensive. In 2024, Australia’s per capita emissions for clothing were equivalent to driving more than 3,600 kilometres in a petrol-fuelled car. That’s further than a road trip from Melbourne to Perth.

Despite these startling figures, our shopping continues.

Restrictions and austerity

Frugal chic has plenty of historical parallels. Though the contexts differ, these moments encouraged Australians to make do with the little they had.

More than 150 years ago, as a flood of gold-rush migrants descended on Australia, many had only a few changes of clothes – as many as could be counted on one hand. This was considered sufficient.

Clothing did not have a single life. It could be mended, adjusted and adapted. It could be passed down from person to person. Clothing was so valuable it was often bequeathed.

At the end of its wearable life, clothing was recycled into something new. It might be cut down to fit children, pieced together and sewn into quilts and waggas (quilts made out of recycled clothes, fabric scraps, old blankets and burlap bags) for warmth at night, or torn into rags.

This considered attitude to clothing did not end in the 20th century. Global upheavals continued to underline the critical importance of long clothing lifecycles.

In the Great Depression, as rates of unemployment soared, clothing budgets plummeted. This demanded ingenuity to keep families clothed.

Austerity measures introduced in Australia during World War II included the rationing of clothing. Measures also included the control of clothing styles to save fabric, threads and buttons. Known as “victory styling”, this created a direct link between less clothing and contributing to the war effort.

Ration books for food and clothing during WWII (1939-1945). Australian War Memorial

Some responded by making new clothes out of old garments salvaged from the back of wardrobes. Others turned to novel materials such as sugar bags to make themselves new outfits.

Reframing restraint

Like these historical examples, the “frugal chic” aesthetic frames frugality as virtuous – aligning with the shift towards sustainability – and aspirational, signalling an intention to live more mindfully.

In today’s context, it’s also inextricably linked to the cost-of-living crisis that has encouraged a rise in secondhand clothing and dress hire.

But “frugal chic” is not without tension. For one thing, most “frugal chic” content casts frugality as a choice rather than a necessity for dealing with issues of overconsumption or low income.

For another, it could be seen as an example of the pressure placed on women to look and act in certain ways – not simply to prioritise sustainability, but to appear both fashionable and financially savvy at the same time.

Will the “frugal chic” aesthetic change how we think about our clothes? It’s hard to say, but all rallying cries for sustainable fashion consumption hold potential for much-needed change.

Lorinda Cramer, Lecturer, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin University

Timothée Chalamet Says Nobody Cares about Opera and Ballet. The Backlash Ignores an Awkward Truth

Timothée Chalamet in a banana-yellow Givenchy suit by Sarah Burton on the red carpet at the 2025 Oscars. Photograph by Christina House/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images. 

By Craig Dalton

During a recent interview to promote his film Marty Supreme, Best Actor-nominee Timothée Chalamet said “no one cares about” opera and ballet anymore.

The actor’s comments labelled both a slight and a swipe by news outlets has provoked swift rebuke from prominent individuals and opera and ballet companies worldwide. Some have suggested the furore may affect his chances of winning the top award at the Oscars ceremony.

Why have Chalamet’s comments hit such a nerve? Is it because his mother and sister both danced with the School of American Ballet? Or is it the hurtful realisation, as dance critic Gia Kourlas notes in her piece for the New York Times, that the only way for ballet to get noticed in the mainstream media is to be dissed by a celebrity?

A health check on ballet

Dance Australia tried a positive spin on the situation. They suggested Chalamet’s comments “may prove unexpectedly useful […] to articulate, once again, why the artform continues to matter”.

Meanwhile, Queensland Ballet Artistic Director Ivan Gil-Ortega wrote of the challenges of “honouring the heritage of ballet while ensuring it remains alive and relevant for audiences today”.

Former dancer-turned-critic Emma Sandall argued ballet has moved “repeatedly in and out of fashion” and “always existed through one form of patronage or another”.

Australia’s national ballet company, The Australian Ballet, has faced a recent decline in attendance. Total live performances fell from 248 in 2023 to 200 in 2024, while attendance dropped from 305,364 to 225,771.

Live Performance Australia, which incorporates ballet and dance into a single national figure, reported a 10.4% decline in attendance over the same period – and a drop of almost 30% from 2010 to 2024.

Reflecting on its A$9.1 million loss in 2024, Chair of The Australian Ballet, Richard Dammery wrote:

without philanthropy, the Australian Ballet would be in a dire financial position. The company only exists […] because of generous donors.

An analysis of the American sector showed half of the 150 ballet companies surveyed were operating in a deficit in the 2023 financial year. Attendance levels for ballet and other forms of live dance in the US almost halved between 2017-2022.

What about opera?

Opera faces a similar dilemma. Opera companies are vexxed by the question of how to remain loyal to artistic values while embracing market economics.

Research suggests they should look for alternate sources of revenue and overhaul traditional approaches to programming. But this comes with risks, such as alienating core audiences and potential donors.

Opera Australia’s forays into musical theatre previously “allowed the company to grow income at a faster rate than expenditure”.

However, programming Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard in 2024 coincided with a A$10 million operating loss and 23% drop in attendance. Former CEO Craig Hassall (CEO from 2013-16) was scathing. He labelled Sunset Boulevard as “disastrous” – and the 2025 follow-up Guys and Dolls as “crazy”.

Reflecting on his final year with the company, Hassall observed that total performances of the musical My Fair Lady rivalled “all of the main-stage operas combined”. He warned:

this addiction to musicals dangerously deprecated the company’s assumed raison d’être: first and foremost, to present opera. Musicals are not opera.

The newly minted CEO, Alex Budd, thanked Chalamet for bringing attention to the art form, and invited him to join the company’s under-35 program. This initiative sold 1,110 tickets when it was launched in 2024. For reference, the capacity of the Joan Sutherland Theatre is 1507.

Budd boasted that Opera Australia has one million seats on sale in 2026. But, in a season that includes three musicals – Anastasia, The Phantom of the Opera and My Fair Lady – he doesn’t say how many of the one million seats are actually for opera.

The world’s largest repertory opera house, The Metropolitan Opera, is adding performances and extending upcoming seasons. But it also faces significant budgetary issues.

Multiple articles published by the New York Times have reported salary cuts, layoffs and a drained deficit fund at the Met Opera. And this is against the backdrop of a tentative deal with Saudi Arabia to secure US$200 million in lifeline funding.

The sale of two Chagall murals owned by the company (valued at US$55 million by Sotheby’s) was also reportedly under consideration.

Labor economist Christos Makridis – who studies the economics of art and culture – recently argued the future is dire for opera companies who concentrate on the preservation of their art form rather than popularising, monetising and growing what they do.

Locally, the Australian Research Council is supporting research to investigate how performing arts companies can increase accessibility and expand audiences. But practical advice will be slow to arrive, and will take time to implement.

The bigger picture

The last National Arts Participation Survey undertaken by Creative Australia found weekly attendance across all art forms dropped from 5% in 2019 to 3% in 2022. This suggests a broader, sector-wide issue.

The opera and ballet sectors continue to argue of their inherent relevance. Popularity, or a lack thereof, does not determine the inherent value of an art form. But a more circumspect position would be to acknowledge and confront the scale of the huge task ahead.

What will opera and ballet organisations do, and change, to ensure their survival?

Chalamet’s words may have galvanised a community. But the community’s response has highlighted a prevalent disconnect between artists’ and administrators’ feelings, and their ability to address the conditions threatening their industries.

Craig Dalton, Lecturer in Musical Theatre, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University