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H E L L O
I would love to hear from you.
Please contact me at:
tel. 416 728 5741
olivia.stren@gmail.com
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She’ll Take You There
ELLE (U.S.)
November, 2017
I recently purchased an unreasonable number of outfits in shades of white and cream. When I wear them, I feel fresh, well-leisured, like the kind of person who lets other people worry about the tedium of laundry—i.e., rich. That is, totally unlike myself. Not long ago, as my two-and-a-half-year-old, Leo, approached my creamy new dress, […]
Grande Dame
FASHION Magazine
November, 2009
Actress Patricia Clarkson on good scripts and the joys of being trapped in a cave with Leonardo DiCaprio. By OLIVIA STREN The mark of a true actor is the ability to bring life to silence—to fasten emotional weight to the moments in between the words, when there’s no script to serve as a guardrail. Should you question […]
Alice Waters: Sticking to slow food in tough times
Globe and Mail
April, 2009
Sticking to slow food in tough times The mother of the slow-food movement is in a rush. She only has 30 minutes to talk, her assistant informs me, as he escorts me to her luminous office located next to Chez Panisse, her restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. The building, splashed in honeyed afternoon sunshine, has all the […]
Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee: Yoga’s First Couple
Globe and Mail
Rodney Yee is sitting cross-legged on the floor of his Intercontinental Hotel suite, nibbling on cantaloupe and stroking the palm of his wife’s suntanned hand. Colleen Saidman Yee is perched on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, her Botticelli torrent of blond tresses half-obscuring the mantra (“Remember Love”) embroidered on her tight black […]
Shop Girl
Toronto Life
December, 2008
Bonnie Brooks has a black belt in retail make-overs, but can she bring shoppers back to The Bay? By OLIVIA STRENI’m sitting on a toilet in a cramped fluorescent-lit bathroom at The Bay’s downtown headquarters, struggling to hear Bonnie Brooks over the din of a blow-dryer. It’s 9:30 a.m. (I’m her second appointment) and the […]
Getting to the Bottom of Michael Buble
Chatelaine
November, 2008
Canada’s favourite crooner weakens knees with his old-fashioned charisma but can’t keep his foot out of his mouth. He jokes like a frat boy but pines like a true romantic. He loves the limelight but hates the fame. Writer OLIVIA STREN puts this mass of contradictions on the couch.
The Hedonists
Toronto Life
November, 2007
How two Toronto designers reinvented decadence. LUNCH #1: PASS THE CHABLIS It’s a flawless spring day in Manhattan, and the noonday sun is dressing the Hudson River in a sheath of silver sequins: a perfectly opulent backdrop for a luncheon with George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg. We meet at Perry Street, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten bistro that faces […]
Dream Girl
Toronto Life
July, 2007
How to become a certified pop diva without losing your indie boyfriend. The unstoppable ambition of Feist. Leslie Feist is sitting quietly in a booth at the Rivoli. She has a soft spot for the restaurant, since she used to work here as a bartender, before she had to worry about major-label record deals and fanatically […]
Rebel Rebel
Toronto Life
December, 2006
George Stroumboulopoulos is a loner who loves attention, an anti-authoritarian mama’s boy and a motorcycle-riding hedonist who doesn’t drink, smoke or sleep. His job? Save the CBC. “What the hell?” It’s the first question George Stroumboulopoulos asks Belinda Stronach, his first guest onThe Hour’s third-season launch. It’s the only prime-time interview Stronach has agreed to do […]
