That sinking feeling ...

Bondi Beach has a kind of white-sand glory impossible to match anywhere around the world. Having seen what looked like swimmers in a beach pool doing idyllic laps, I dive right in.

In the water, it took me a moment to figure out why my laps felt so chaotic and dizzying. It wasn’t just that I’d had breakfast not long ago, it was the churning of the ice-cold waves. They have a way of lurching and rolling so you can get seasick as you swim. Your horizon is not the calm, flat, artificial blue of the public indoor pool, it chops and changes and every time you poke your head above water it looks different.

My swimming companion went white. White, even, under the kabuki mask of waterproof sunscreen laced through his stubble. “I’m really having trouble,” he admitted. What melodrama, I thought.

I would do two more of the 50m laps. One was fine. Then the waves, being wild, threw up a terrific spray. I was bobbing, I was flailing. I was trapped by blue – sky above, deep, salty water below, to my left, to my right. Not landlocked now, I was waterlocked. Throwing an arm around a skinny lane rope was helpful as hugging a strand of dental floss; it sank, I went under, I flailed, I breathed in salt water. I repeated this action: bobbing, flailing, watching arcs of ocean spray toss me under again. It was sort of mortifying. I was feeling too stupid to call for help. I was astonished by the situation. “But I can swim,” I thought. “I can’t drown because I can swim.”

I flailed myself over to the concrete edge of the pool and grabbed it. It was solid, and I breathed.

Dear Maison Martin Margiela jacket, it's not me, it's you

Image via TheOutnet

What I hoped would be our fine romance started out innocently enough – with an 85 per cent off sale at The Outnet.

These sales inspire in me a kind of feverish longing and a tired index finger from hitting ‘refresh’ every three seconds as women around the world try to beat me to the good stuff and the whole damned website crashes and crashes.

I was hoping for something that could be as much of a wardrobe staple as my Alexander Wang navy linen blazer. An Acne leather jacket caught my eye but was snatched from under my nose. The next morning, among the slim pickings, there you were: French size 36, shiny oxblood red patent leather, structured and killer. The kind of jacket that would make me look like an achingly cool inhabitant of The Matrix. Probably.

I was seduced, too, by your label. Maison Martin Margiela – a label of great prestige and mystique, one associated with the designer they call fashion’s invisible man, noted for his reclusiveness, his lack of fashion show bows, his use of the collective ‘we’ instead of the egotistic ‘me’ and his anti-label label – just a blank bit of cloth stitched into the garment in its four corners.

Then you arrived and you were as rich and dark as my heart desired, heavily fragrant in the way of all good leathers. I wrestled my way into you in my office toilets. Here, our relationship soured. You were creaky. Really CREAKY. Like damn, there goes my career in cat burglary creaky. What did Google suggest for creaky patent leather? WD40, like what you’d use to fix your creaky door. WTF.

You had a centre front zip, a centre back zip, a funny side zip to affix the somewhat odd big front flap to somewhere near my left hip. Also several press studs. Also a detachable funnel collar. You were an IQ test of jackets. Not something to be donned or removed at a moment’s notice. This I realised when getting in and out was like attempting to put on a straitjacket.

Don’t get me wrong, dear jacket. Even though a colleague who spotted me called you ‘a bit out there’ and my partner was a long way from enamoured of you, I still think you’re cool, you’re amazing. Someone out there will love you and spend their autumn and winter looking like an inhabitant of The Matrix.

That person is not me.

Farewell.