This week is Fashion Week – no, not in Milan, Paris, New York or London. Try Down Under. Sydney’s hosting three days of fall/winter shows – rechristened trans-seasonal since it so confused northern hemisphere types – in the Overseas Passenger Terminal building opposite the Opera House (a step up from Bryant Park’s gerry-rigged tents). It’s a tricky event for Sydneysiders as fashionistas and organizers IMG try to balance the ‘We’re-funky-and-emerging-so-what?’ tag with the ‘We-matter-just-like-Milan-really!’ attitude.

Nowhere was that better illustrated than at the week’s kick-off event: the inaugural Fashion Laureate Award – essentially, a CFDA-style lifetime achievement gong. The bash at the governor’s mansion drew the local fashpack – sipping slightly warm flutes of sponsor Pommery – to watch videos of nominees like Jayson Brunsdon, Akira Isogawa and Collette Dinnigan recounting their career greatest hits. Then Dinnigan-clad Minister for Women Verity Firth presented the award to Isogawa… who’d taped his acceptance, since he’s in Paris after showing the latest collection there. All good Aussie designers, it seems, eventually abandon Aussie Fashion Week for the northern hemisphere, award ceremonies be damned (thankfully, for expats craving downunder designs, most end up stocked in West Village boutique Elizabeth Charles).

Fashion Week did draw a few boldfacers to show and sit in the audiences (Lil Jon, Adrian Grenier) but this season’s largely a filler until the big, noisy, bells-and-whistles blow out in March for spring/summer. The shows were fun and fine, though it’s a shame they overlooked what really makes Aussie style special.

It’s not catwalking or couture touches, but brilliant, no-fuss basics like work boots and T-shirts. Take Bonds: these pricey Barneys-sold treats so beloved of Ben Affleck back home – they’re seamlessly knitted in the round to flatter any body shape – are two-for-$30 Hanes-style staples here. Maybe next Fashion Week, they might allow a few Aussie classics like that to join Collette and co on the catwalk.