Which city is better, Sydney or Melbourne? I’m in a unique position to decide

After spending half my life in Sydney I have answered the footy siren call to return home to Melbourne. It’s fashion not football sending me down the Hume Highway to within sniffing distance of the Yarra River, but the AFL is Melbourne’s answer to Kevin Bacon, with six degrees of separation connecting anything within the city limits to the MCG.

These are the final words I will type as fashion editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and they have nothing to do with Princess Catherine’s latest tiara, Taylor Swift’s wedding dress or the outrageous and well-deserved success of the Zimmermann sisters in conquering international fashion.

Before starting in my new role as the creative director of the Melbourne Fashion Festival, I would like to address the one question that has bombarded me since announcing my double defection: which city is better, Melbourne or Sydney?

To do this, I would normally divide the question into categories, in the style of a Miss Universe pageant, without the swimsuit section, which is lucky for Melbourne.

Instead, I will don my custom Gucci sash and deliver my Miss Universe answer, which, like a desire for world peace, is 100 per cent truthful. Both cities are remarkable, and we are lucky to have two distinct capitals so close to each other in such a remote country.

If Melbourne’s cultural creativity crossed the border, no one would be in bed by 10pm.

Imagine having two Melbournes, two Sydneys or, grab your sunglasses, two Brisbanes.

The differences between Melbourne and Sydney are all positive. One eye-wateringly beautiful harbour is enough for one country, and if Melbourne’s cultural creativity crossed the border, no one would be in bed by 10pm.

In my experience, most of the clichés we have created about the cities are as truthful as the Ava Gardner misquote that Melbourne was the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world, made up by a cadet journalist in 1959.

Sydney people are friendly; Melbourne people don’t always wear black; you can find great coffee and brilliant pasta joints (Pellegrino 2000 in Sydney and Il Solito Posto in Melbourne – fashion people do eat carbs) almost anywhere.

Within seconds, without looking at your shoes, a Sydneysider will have you pegged socially, economically and sexually by your postcode.

There are some things I will miss about Sydney. For most of my time here I have not owned an iron. Since the death of model Maggie Tabberer in 2024, there are few adherents to crisp collars that could cut prosciutto, with more people leaning towards a crushed lived-in appearance.

In a Sydney summer, crumpled linen shirts are as common as cabanas on the Port Philip Bay foreshore. Ironing a T-shirt in Kings Cross could be mistaken as trying too hard and putting an iron near some of the barely-there dresses at Bondi is a fire hazard.

My first purchase in Melbourne will be an iron and a steamer for good measure. It’s not because the locals are more stylish, it’s just that they make more of an effort. Look beyond some of the fancy-dress outfits at the annual NGV Gala and there’s a commitment to a stylish look that disappeared in Sydney when people started turning up to the opening night of the opera in shorts.

Melbourne people like to dress up and Sydney people like to dress up to get down.

The ability of Sydney people to introduce their home suburb in the first five minutes of conversation – even if it’s while debating whether J-Lo should have worn a ridiculously big hat to Wimbledon – will also be missed. Within seconds, without looking at your shoes, a Sydneysider will have you pegged socially, economically and sexually by your postcode.

The only way I will be able to cope is by realising that Melbourne people do the same thing by mentioning the school they attended, pigeonholing you with greater accuracy than the resident computer nerd on NCIS.

I won’t have to miss telling stories about fashion. Whether it’s the Logies, Brownlow, Met Gala or Melbourne Fashion Festival, all Australians have an opinion and appetite for style. Pauline Hanson at a Dolce & Gabbana show in Italy demonstrates the diversity of fashion’s appeal.

The big difference is that now I will be telling those stories on the runway, and there just might be a few more people with crisp collars watching from the front row.

Damien Woolnough is the departing fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is the new creative director of the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

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