Sydneysiders talk about Balmain as if it were the world's remotest city, complaining the peninsula suburb is amazingly hard to reach.
In fact, you can pitch up there just by catching a ferry from the city travel hub, Circular Quay. True, you need to be fit because the shops are scattered along the hilly, tapering high street. But the legwork pays off because Balmain has more to it than its popular Saturday churchyard market (below right).
Start, say, at Zeblu (205 Darling Street, tel: 61 2 9555 8711). Set near the market, opposite the suburb's most character-laden pub, the London Hotel, Zeblu is a shrine to the cool and the wacky. The shop stocks everything from trench coats (A$190/HK$1,270) to cuddly Coogee Bag Company handbags (A$70), along with a spectrum of watches, earrings and necklaces.
Next door, Punch Gallery (209 Darling Street, tel: 61 2 9810 1014) showcases a collection of modern artwork housed in an 1870s shop. Items cost from about A$20 (earrings) to A$2,500 (French wire-and-crystal chandeliers).
Just about everything except the telephone is handmade. Watch out for Irwin Rohl's word-beating jewellery pitched as 'wearable poetry for lobes and lapels' and Mary Rose's 24-carat gold heart-shaped vases.
If you prefer less flamboyant fare, pop into Hunt (215 Darling Street, tel: 61 2 9810 6811), a leather store specialising in chic bags.