Sydney Fashion Week: eight stylish shopping neighbourhoods in the city to check out
Australia’s biggest city is experiencing a retail renaissance, and as its fashion week gets under way, we survey the best places to shop there, from established Castlereagh Street to ultra-modern Barangaroo
Sydney is a construction site at the moment. On the plus side, there has never been a better time to shop in the city.
International brands continue to flock Down Under, chasing growth in a country whose population is booming, thanks to record immigration rates. Net migration rose 27 per cent in the 12 months to June 2017, the fastest in the developed world, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and among the highest for any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Daigou Down Under: the Chinese shopping trend taking Australia by storm
International tourism and education are also booming, with Chinese tourists and students accounting for a significant percentage in both sectors. According to global business intelligence leader IBISWorld, sales of personal luxury goods rose 11 per cent year on year to A$1.8 billion in 2017.
An unprecedented A$62 billion is being pumped into Sydney’s central business district through upgrades to transport infrastructure and office, hotel and residential developments, as Australia’s biggest city gears up for a projected 48 per cent growth in its population, to 7.4 million people, over the next 30 years.
Sydney Fashion Week starts on Monday, and the schedule is stacked full of the country’s best designers, which has put the city in the style spotlight even more.
Late last year saw the opening of sections of the newly pedestrianised George Street Boulevard, which is the main artery of the district. Luxury behemoths Louis Vuitton and Burberry had already decamped there in 2011. Both tripled the size of their original flagship stores in the city’s traditional luxury precinct of Castlereagh Street, which is now packed to the gills.
