What would the Almost Famous plot look like in 2026? Mia Hewitt and Cherise Combrink of folk-rock duo Father’s Favourite are living it. The girls met through their boyfriends’ band and have since joined forces. They are set to debut their first single this month. The future is bright for this Australian duo whose star is on the rise.

When we speak, Hewitt and Combrink are spending their days songwriting as they travel around Europe with their boyfriends’ band. While the guys play shows, the girls sit backstage writing their own music. “I kept pestering Cherise after we met two years ago,” says Hewitt. “I was freshly 18 and she’s a bit older than me. I knew we should be friends. I had seen her sing at Oxford Art Factory, which was actually her first time singing on stage, so we decided to have a jam. It clicked. We had known each other less than a month, and we decided to start a band.” They had discovered a mutual love for Fleetwood Mac and began to write down “really bad band names”. Ultimately, their friend suggested Father’s Favourite. “Our dads didn’t think much of it,” says Combrink. Hewitt adds, “Our families have always just been like, create and do whatever. Go for it.”

Originally from Melbourne, Hewitt grew up in the Bahamas, the daughter of tennis legend Lleyton Hewitt and actress Bec Hewitt. Combrink grew up in Sydney with South African parents, to the sounds of reggae and rock ’n’ roll. “It was a lot of Bob Marley,” Combrink says. “A lot of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. AC/DC is one of my dad’s favourite bands.” Laughing, Hewitt says, “My dad was very into Jimmy Barnes. My mum loved Gwen Stefani. I feel like I had very 2000s parents. They were really young when they had me so that was what they were into.”

The girls bonded over Stevie Nicks, David Bowie and a mutual love of playing the guitar. “I thought I was Taylor Swift when I was very young,” says Hewitt. “I had a Hannah Montana guitar.” “Wait, I also had the Hannah Montana guitar!” Combrink says. Hewitt began lessons at age eight, and after being convinced by her mum to continue, she started to write songs as a teenager. Combrink began on ukulele, her “gateway into guitar”, before teaching herself on that Hannah Montana guitar. Over the last year, they have been sharpening their live performances with shows around Australia and writing together to hone their sound. “We’ve had people offer to do songwriting sessions with us but right now we are very protective of it… we like to do it in our personal time.” The first time they wrote together, they were inspired by Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and wrote a song titled Charms. “It was about Cherise’s cat, but we made her sound like a lady of the night… That was when we started to realise the kind of vibe our sound was. That was the starting point.”

Their upcoming single Witch is a sort of whimsical heartbreak-inspired-turned-70s rock song. “I brought the lyrics to Mia and we finished the song together,” says Combrink. “It’s a groovy rock ’n’ roll song with a soul vibe. The bass and drums, where it cuts out in the chorus, it’s very Fleetwood Mac. There’s a bit of Stevie in it. It has a very specific feeling. We’re very visual people when we are writing the music. Our Pinterest boards go crazy.” Filled with images of Jane Birkin, ’60s movies, Linda Ronstadt and American rock band Heart, the mood boards they create are odes to women who are constantly inspiring them. Hewitt says, “These are people and artists who were just authentically themselves. Like, we love [the memoirist] Eve Babitz. We wrote a song called Fast Company about her. We love Pamela Des Barres; we wrote a song called Pamela after we read her book [I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie; Des Barres is thought to be the inspiration for Penny Lane in Almost Famous].” Naturally, fashion is a big part of the Father’s Favourite world. Hewitt cites Alexa Chung as the “all-time muse”, and Combrink references Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s first wife. Growing up on Tumblr, they reminisce about the Cara Delevingne ‘era’. “All those girls [on Tumblr] were so cool,” says Hewitt. “I can see how we are influenced by them… I think that’s why we are so creative now.”

The pair are instinctively becoming better songwriters through the hours they put it into it daily. “There’s a quiet intimacy between the two of us,” says Combrink. “We can look at each other and know how the other one feels. You can feel that in our songwriting, too.” They’re also learning how to navigate working with the rest of the boys who join them on stage as their full band. “Navigating being a boss of boys and learning how to be assertive can be difficult. Even with industry says Combrink. “I’m always up for a challenge but sometimes it is genuinely challenging to step into that position of asserting yourself and asking for what you want. We’re very new to this.” But really, their biggest challenge is what they wear on stage. “Trying to figure out what to wear when you’re playing countless shows… that’s seriously stressful,” says Combrink, as both laugh. For their 10 Australia cover shoot, they embody the fairytale aspect of Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, in full freedom and buzzing with the excitement of what’s next.

As they get ready to release the first music of their career, they have begun to manifest. “I told our booking agent that we want to play Red Rocks [the legendary amphitheatre in Colorado],” Hewitt says with a laugh. “He said, ‘If we get the opportunity, do you want to play it as a support, or do you want to wait until you headline it one day?’ I said, ‘We’ll wait for the headline show.’” They also mention Glastonbury, of course. “This is our first time releasing music so we’re trying to just make sure these upcoming songs are perfect and exactly the way we want them,” says Combrink. “We want to prioritise our friendship and respect each other as people, too. You don’t realise when you start a band with someone that you get so involved in each other’s lives. You’re making a big commitment to that person.” Hewitt adds, “You’re basically getting married. We have interlaced our lives together. Luckily for us, it’s going great.”

Taken from 10 Magazine Australia Issue 28 - FUTURE, LEGACY, HERITAGE - on newsstands September 18.

Photographer STEPHANIE CAMMARANO
Fashion Editor ABBY BENNETT
Talent MIA HEWITT and CHERISE COMBRINK
Text ROXY LOLA
Hair and make-up MONIQUE JONES using CHANEL BEAUTY
Movement director TALIA KUO
Fashion assistants REBECCA RITCHIE and SOFIE PYE
Hair and make-up assistant SANAZ FAKHRA
Digital operator SHERRY ZHENG
Photographer’s assistant JOEY CLARK
Production FOND WORLD
Clothes, bags and shoes throughout CHANEL AW26

chanel.com

‍