At 1:35am we finally arrived to our hotel.

Melbourne looked peaceful at night. The sky was unfamiliar and sprawling. Mesmerized, I watched out the window as glittery fingers stretched across the darkness, all the way to the countryside.

I never liked Melbourne. I found the weather too cold, the coffee over-rated and the idea of trams and AFL rather annoying.

Melbourne was the city in Australian that was known to be the ‘most artsy’ and European- so perhaps I just had my Sydney scarf rapped too tight, but either way- I was here. And open to a change of mind.

My friend and I made the trip to see the Alexander McQueen Exhibition, which just arrived from London. I was quite shocked when we reached the National Gallery of Victory. Having lived in both Brisbane and Sydney, I never knew Australia cared that much about the Arts, to make buildings of this size. The gallery was the size of a cathedral, with the best of Mcqueen’s recovered collections inside.

Extravagance, violence, lust, power, grief and a billion glass beads embroidered on top of moulded fabric before feathers outran them.

Geometric patterns printed on tissue-like silk… overlocker into squares that tumbled down the fine lines of the female body until ending in a romantic mess on the floor.

The string instrumentals, the projected visuals dancing on the walls made each collection force an emotion out of you; pain, heartbreak, rage, romance, a craving for intimacy…. sometimes all at once.

I left the exhibition with the harsh revelation that I had been living life on autopilot for far too long. And that I needed to do more, feel more. Even if it was painful.

Although I don’t know how McQueen could possibly create emotion, for every one of his 36 collections he created. It seemed almost inhuman, to feel such intensity.

To feel all these loud emotions must have been cathartic or tortursome. Perhaps it was dance, each collection a game he played with himself, only to tragically end in 2010 when the dance was over.

But for a man, a creator like that. No one could go home. Not the same- In their rarest forms, his clothes were a sensory experience. One you didn’t just see but rather, Mcqueen forced you to taste. Visually.

I remember reading his autobiography ‘Lee’- he told a trusted designer that he was planning on killing himself during one of his shows. A final and lasting way to go, in a industry that gets high off novelty and quick turn-over.

Luckily, he was talked him out of it. But it does make you feel rather twisted for being awe of his clothes, his expressions of darkness.

Decades post his death, Mcqueen’s clothes are still as innovative, shocking and beautiful. The same responses repeated upon first released. I could only imagine with the shows, how much more haunting it would have been and probably borderline disturbing at times.

Just to tunnel to the darkest parts of yourself and reopen such fragile boxes… It would make life quite unlovable.

I hope he’s finally at peace. Perhaps he’s reincarnated as one of his favourite motifs; a bird or a gazelle in a gorgeous tailored suit…

Walking back from the show, I considered how tired I had become, like tiredness was a personality trait or a limb for the past few months. Work and Uni left no energy or interest for anything anymore.

But there were sips of sanity, Melbourne being the first.

Being November, it was also comeback season. With old flames checking in before the new year plants them firmly in the past.

One popped up on WhatsApp, after a month of silence. Another checked up on my Instagram, after us parting in May.

It’s so weird how sentimentally catches up with us, in these last few glimpses of the year.

Self-reflection letting in the cold wind of grief, for another year of people found and people lost.