Event organisers IMG Fashion invited — and paid for — "elite" bloggers to travel to Sydney to cover it last week. "We've invited some of these guys here because our role is to get people talking about Australian fashion. And when you've got bloggers that provide immediate commentary within hours, even minutes, of a show finishing, and they are communicating to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people around the globe, why wouldn't you get them here?" says Australian Fashion Week founder Simon Lock.

Among the international bloggers sitting front row was Bryanboy — a Manila-based web developer turned flamboyant fashion blogger who attracts up to 180,000 visitors a day to his blog, bryanboy.com.

Famous for witty and often bitchy fashion commentary, Bryanboy is so respected in the fashion blogosphere that The New York Post recently voted him among the top nine "hottest celebrities on the web" and high-profile American designer Marc Jacobs named a handbag after him.

Bryanboy believes the power of the blogger lies in the ability to give uncensored, unedited fashion commentary at break-neck speed to a global audience.