A Girl’s Weekend in Melbourne – The House of Dior & Street Art.

When I went to Melbourne in January I went purely for the Australian Open finals, so I didn’t get to really spend much time in the city itself. A couple of weekends ago I flew to Melbourne to join a couple of my friends from Perth there, as Anna moved there earlier this year and Caitlin was desperate to get out of Perth for a few days. After a slight hiccup with my flight being cancelled, I finally arrived for my weekend in Melbourne 24 hours later than originally planned, and the party got started!

Ready to know how to have the perfect 48 hour girls trip to Melbs? Let’s go!

The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria

Brunch at Henry And The Fox

After a midnight feast of lollies, Tim Tams, and catching up, Cait and I started our Saturday with brunch at Henry And The Fox. We weren’t too hungry after our midnight feast, so decided to share the French Toast with apple compote. It was delish, and we were suitably filled up and ready to tackle fashion and art at the National Gallery of Victoria!

Walk through the Laneways

We walked through the street-art lined laneways, and over the Yarra River to the National Gallery, the sun shining and the crowds out and about enjoying the beautiful spring day.

 

 

 

 

National Gallery of Victoria – House of Dior Exhibition

The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, has been organised in celebration of the House of Dior’s 70th anniversary, and is an absolutely stunning exhibition filled with exquisite gowns many of us could only dream of wearing.

It’s an exclusive exhibition to Melbourne, with a display of more than 140 garments designed by the various designers at Christian Dior Couture between 1947 and 2017. The designers include Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri. It’s fascinating seeing the difference in favourite styles and colours between the designers, but at the same time the typical Dior style throughout; classy, feminine, and flattering on the female form.

The exhibition is quite pricey at $26, but it’s well worth the cost. It really is beautiful and all the dresses are so dreamy. I took so many photos I found it really difficult to whittle them down to just a few, so please do excuse the photo heavy-ness of this post! Also, the last photo is of Miranda Kerr’s wedding dress!

The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria
Miranda Kerr's Dior Wedding Dress National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne

Shopping on Bourke Street

After spending an hour or two at the exhibition, we then walked over to Bourke Street and had a bit of a shop. The H&M on Bourke Street is probably the most incredible H&M in the world, it’s inside Melbourne’s old GPO (General Post Office), which was built in 1859 and these days houses retail stores and restaurants.

It was late afternoon by this point so we decided to head back to our hotel, the Sheraton Melbourne, and get changed and ready to go out for dinner. We’d planned to go to Chin Chin for dinner, one of the most renowned restaurants in Melbourne, and one that despite being open for years, still commands three-hour queues around the block to get a table.

Rooftop bar crawl around Melbourne

Like all of the hyped-up restaurants in the world, Chin Chin has a no reservations policy, and so despite arriving at the restaurant at 6pm on the dot, there was already a waiting list, a queue to get on the waiting list, and after queuing for 20 minutes we were finally on the two-hour long list. We decided to go on a small bar crawl before dinner, so off we went to a couple of the rooftop bars back up the road near our hotel.

Loop Roof

Melbourne is famous for rooftop bars, and we decided to test out two of the most well-known. Loop Roof was our first stop, and was super cute with greenery softening the wooden bar. We had a cocktail each, before moving on to the next bar! We found the next one a little hard to find, and ended up down a dodgy alleyway with a bunch of homeless drug addicts high off their faces staring at us suspiciously as we hobbled down the alley in search of more cocktails.

Loop Roof Rooftop Cocktail Bar Melbourne

Good Heavens

After hobbling as fast as possible down the dodgy alleyway filled with drug paraphernalia and glaring eyes, we realized we’d taken a wrong turn and the entrance was actually on the main road, just slightly hidden. Good Heavens had a pretty funky vibe and a varied cocktail menu, the cocktails we had were delish, and after our cocktails we got the call from Chin Chin to tell us our table was ready!

Good Heavens rooftop bar melbourne

Dinner at Chin Chin

We finished up our cocktails and walked back over to Chin Chin. We ordered quickly as by this point it was 8:30pm and we were starving! We opted for the Kingfish Sashimi and the Chin Chin Pork “Roll Ups”, which is slow cooked pork, slaw, and asian herbs. Both were incredible, but the Pork Rolls ups were definitely my favourite out of the two.

Chin Chin Melbourne
Chin Chin Melbourne
Chin Chin Melbourne

For our main course we decided to share the Massaman Curry of Coconut Braised Beef, coconut rice, and a portion of Roti for mopping up curry sauce! It wasn’t the most photogenic dish, but it tasted so flavoursome and incredible, and was so huge we couldn’t finish it all and only managed about half of it. However naturally with our second dessert stomach, we did order dessert.

We shared the Sago pudding with sweetcorn ice-cream, which I was a liiiiittle worried about due to the word ‘sweetcorn’ in a dessert name, but actually it tasted delicious!

Chin Chin Melbourne
Chin Chin Melbourne

After-Dinner Drinks at Fitzroy Beer Garden

We finished up our meal and paid the bill, then jumped in a taxi over to Anna’s house in Fitzroy. After a glass of red and catch ups (aka, Anna and Caitlin making fun of me), we walked down to the Fitzroy Beer Garden, which was very hipster, and not my scene at all. It was totally Cait’s scene though and she was loving it, so I sucked it up and sat amongst the cigarette smoke and had fun dancing on the outside dance floor.

Dancing at Laundry Bar

When the beer garden closed we went to a place that was more mine and Anna’s scene; Laundry Bar. Laundry Bar is a raw hip-hop bar, it costs $10 entry and it is SO worth it. I mean, there were dance offs. And with the three of us being #whitegirlwasted, I may have accidentally danced/stumbled into one of them and then got scared when the guys thought I was taking part and started cheering me on…so I ran back into the crowd as quickly as possible.

We eventually stumbled back into the hotel around 3am, and I’m telling you now, taking off my makeup and getting into that beautiful Sheraton bed was the best feeling ever!

The next morning we slept in, had the most amazing buffet breakfast at the hotel, and then spent the rest of the morning in the hotel spa relaxing, and wearing our matching bikinis that we’d got the day before (FYI, $40 for a H&M bikini top is not cool).

We did head out in the afternoon for some Haigh’s chocolates and to the Queen Victoria Market for food, but both of us were really disappointed by it and it wasn’t what we were expecting at all. It was mainly fresh market food, rather than food you can actually eat there and then. So back to the hotel we went to pack and head to the airport.

The weekend was over way too quickly, but it had been such a great one and so lovely to just hang out and spend time with two of my Perth besties!

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Catherine Lux
Catherine Lux

Catherine Lux is a veteran travel blogger by night and the Head of SEO at Havas Media Group by day. Originally from Surrey, she spent four years living in Australia (2007-2009, and 2016-2018), and now lives in London. An ex-party girl sometimes prone to relapses, she loves nothing more than sharing her fine dining and luxury travel experiences with her loyal readers.

Find me on: Web | Instagram

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2 Comments

  1. Posh, Broke, & Bored
    October 9, 2017 / 12:08 am

    Ohhh I love the look of that Dior exhibit, and the NGV on St Kilda Road is one of my favourite Melbourne museums. Such a shame the exhibit finishes before I get there in December! 😂

    20 Days, 20 Cities, 6 Countries – Part 7: Split, Croatia – Posh, Broke, & Bored

  2. Angie SilverSpoon
    October 10, 2017 / 9:27 am

    The Dior Exhibition looks fab!!! I've been to Chin Chin 🙂

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