While not quite the Champs-Élysées, Chapel Street is well worth a visit. Stores range from high street to high fashion and are interspersed with bars, cafés and restaurants, all of which provide a perfect vantage point for people watching and trend spotting.

A Melbourne-based womenswear label that embraces the city’s laid-back approach to dressing, combining neutral colours with a crisp, modern aesthetic, accented with bold prints and conceptual shapes.

A well-curated selection of local fashion and overseas brands, featuring labels like Rag & Bone, A.P.C and Acne Studios, with a focus on sophisticated functionality. The expansive retail spaces combine timber and concrete to create a muted background for a mature shopping experience, leaving room for in-store art installations.

While global favourites such as Topshop and Uniqlo can be found here, Emporium is a convenient gem that also houses much of Australia’s best homegrown brands from Camilla and Marc to Life with Bird. Located within the CBD, the mall is nearby other shopping streets such as Collins, while the delights of Chinatown are less that a minute’s stroll away.

As Australia’s creative capital, Melbourne is packed with stylish boutiques and independent cafés. For a one-stop hit, head to Flinders Lane, formerly the city’s grungy garment district, where Australian brands from cutting-edge fashion label Alpha60 rubs shoulders the likes of beauty company Aesop, and an array of iconic restaurants like Kisumé and Tonka.

A little strip of cool in Melbourne’s Fitzroy neighbourhood, Gertrude Street is home to some of the city’s best bars, restaurants and independent boutiques. And while its less than a kilometre in length, you could easily spend a day browsing hip, local independent labels such as Handsom; high quality craftsmanship at homeware store Mud; and refuelling at restaurants like Belle’s Hot Chicken, before starting again.

It might be named after New York City’s boroughs, but this little design store in Brunswick East, celebrates all things local. Perfect for finding souvenirs expect an abundance of quirky knickknacks from tiny timber kangaroos by wooden toy company Anamalz to art-deco-inspired jewellery by Tasmanian jeweller, Isabelle.