Donna Karan fashion designer attends Australia's 'Nomad Two Worlds' art preview event, a collective project encompassing art, music and cultural education as launched recently in New York, at the National Gallery of Victoria on October 8, 2009 in Melbourn (Robert Prezioso/Getty Images)
But the fashion icon's packed schedule has meant the trip will have to wait until February.
She addressed a gathering at "Nomad: Two Worlds", a multimedia art exhibition that tells the story of reconciliation in action, at a gallery in Armadale, in Melbourne's inner east, on Sunday.
Karan, who lives in New York, says she has always been drawn to the east.
"I don't think there is a clear explanation for it, why something touches you," she told AAP.
"I connect to land and I connect to nature, that is my soul connection and that for the Aborigines is the same.
"So maybe in a past life I was an Aborigine, I don't know."
The designer, who had a sweatshop class action taken out against her in 2000 by the Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund, said buying a garment is about making a difference in the lives of those who have made it.
"Buying is not for yourself. Buying is for making a difference out there in the world today," she said.
"Everything we buy, think of ... the people who grow the crop for the fabrics, the sewers, the people who dye, the people who make.
"You are buying a garment to save someone's life, to feed a child."
Karan founded the Urban Zen Foundation in 2006 to preserve cultures and empower children.
