“Fashion designer Alexander McQueen hanged himself after taking a cocktail of cocaine, sleeping pills and tranquilizers, an inquest heard today.”
The 40-year-old’s body was found in a wardrobe at his flat in Mayfair, central London, on February 11, the day before his mother Joyce’s funeral.
The inquest into his death was told that McQueen had a history of depression, anxiety and insomnia and had researched suicide on the internet prior to taking his life.”
Mental illnesses, specifically depression, impact the daily functions of a human being. They can affect the ways a person uses their motivation, social skills and necessary habits. The normal actions such as brushing your teeth or getting up out of bed in the morning to make your 8 a.m. class or even pouring cream into your coffee can begin to feel like a chore. Some may argue that this is just laziness. However, it is not laziness if the desire and motivation is there but the brain won’t allow it. It is often judged as an excuse to short-cut a way through success. The discrimination towards mental illnesses is not asked for just as much as any other physical illness. A person diagnosed with depression simply did not ask for depression just as much as a person with cystic fibrosis did not ask for cystic fibrosis.
Alexander McQueen is considered to be one of greatest fashion designers of all time. He took risks in all departments of artistic mantras and believed in no rules and limits with fashion. Many aspiring fashion designers look up to him and his past collections as their motivation to succeed. McQueen is deemed as a legend in the in and outs of high-fashion. Unfortunately, he still lost.
Most mental illnesses do not have a permanent cure. They usually only have medications and treatments that may improve over time. I want to talk about one specific treatment.
Art is one of the escapes and treatments people with depression often use. It is the open door of having some sort of temporary sanity for a certain period of time. The temporary sanity becomes addictive and develops artists. Focusing on fashion designers, they develop from the overdose of that temporary sanity hoping to make it permanent and stable. Therefore, they immerse themselves in the industry that is fashion. They find ways to escape the depression with little peepholes. From wearing whatever they want, believing that fashion has no rules, binge watching Milan Fashion Week Shows and making that passion grow.
Fashion can destroy depression in the tiny decisions from feeling good in what you are wearing, dolling up your face with makeup, and generally experimenting with fashionable ideas to try out. It is the the complex industry in art that makes presentation limitless. The set vision of how a person is supposed to dress does not exist in this world. Nobody looks for the permission. Everyone is stubborn.
That is how they succeed with fashion.
Suddenly, that depressed fashion advocate is interning for Jason Wu in New York City. They are baby stepping their way out of depression. Is that really the cure, though? Is there a way out of depression?
If depression is an illness and the only cure is doing what you love, what happens when your passion becomes diminished and the “laziness” gets the best of you?
Sometimes, depression “wins” and that’s okay.
It is okay because the key to depression is controlling it. In willing to succeed with it, you have to use it as a motivation wire. You have to tell yourself that you do not want depression to come back. Therefore, you are going to do everything you can to shower yourself with success to make a barrier for depression to not even touch you. It is an everyday competition with yourself. The easy decision is to let it defeat you.
The living evidence of those that did not allow it beat them is what makes the fashion industry so great. They are examples of a reminder that fashion may be more effective than Zoloft, Prozoc and Luvox.
Fashion is a medication for depression.
Overdose on it.