Life & Style | New Zealand finds perfect spokesman: Stephen Colbert

New Zealand has relied on hobbits, bungy jumping and rugby to entice tourists in the past.

Now Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern may have found the perfect spokesman to embrace all of the above and more: American comedian Stephen Colbert.

In an interview yesterday, Ardern talked about the boost to the country’s vital tourism industry that Colbert appears to have singlehandedly orchestrated.

Last month, Colbert recounted his adventures in New Zealand during a weeklong humorous segment on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

The first segment shows Ardern picking up Colbert from the airport in her car and hosting him for a backyard barbecue, with singer Lorde in attendance.

“It was an amazing opportunity to do something for New Zealand,” Ardern said. “He had a genuine love of New Zealand though. Like, very genuine. So, it actually made it really easy.”

Ardern said Colbert’s segments went beyond the typical depictions of New Zealand’s beautiful scenery and adventure sports. “It showcased our people really well, and just who we are,” she said.

Chanel celebrates artisans in glimmering Paris show

Chanel brought its itinerant off-season fashion show the “arts and crafts,” with its swath of VIPs including Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard, back to home ground in Paris on Wednesday to mark its first collection since Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this year.

New designer Virginie Viard teamed up with film director Sofia Coppola this season to imagine a cinematic opus that saw the house’s 1920s Rue Cambon atelier — replete with crystal chandeliers and mirrored cubist staircase — recreated under the lofty roof of the Grand Palais exhibition space.

Unlike the seasonal collections that trickle down to set high street trends, the “arts and crafts” pre-collection aims at showing off and celebrating the work of the artisans that are the beating heart of Chanel, and the Paris fashion industry as a whole.

Celebrating their technical know-how is one way that storied Paris heritage houses have tried to distinguish themselves in the face of increased competition from other fashion capitals, such as New York and Milan.

Kid Rock’s Detroit eatery closing after his anti-Oprah rant

A Kid Rock-owned restaurant in Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena will close once its licensing agreement expires this spring, the singer and arena operator announced separately Wednesday.

The severing of ties between the suburban Detroit-born musician and Ilitch Holdings came days after video surfaced showing Kid Rock ranting against Oprah Winfrey, though neither party tied the parting to the video or the backlash that followed. The split also points to a widening estrangement between Kid Rock and the city he calls home.

“I appreciate all who have patronized our place and still have much love for the city of Detroit and the people/organizations that I have helped there for years, black, white, whatever, but learned long ago, go where you’re celebrated, not tolerated,” he wrote Wednesday on Facebook.

Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit opened in 2017 in Little Caesars Arena, which is home to the NHL’s Red Wings and the NBA’s Detroit Pistons.