UK: TOP DESIGNERS RAISE MONEY FOR RESEARCH INTO BREAST CANCER

Record ID: 390325

  • Title: UK: TOP DESIGNERS RAISE MONEY FOR RESEARCH INTO BREAST CANCER
  • Date: 24th October 2000
  • Summary: JULIEN MACDONALD'S DESIGNS
  • Embargoed: 8th November 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAAZW3MQ9045SPPVKHI54MSB9CV
  • Story Text: Top designers from the fashion world have come up with funky new frocks to raise money for research into breast cancer. Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westood and Nicole Farhi among others will then put their creations up for auction in December.
    What would unite 22 designers, the world's leading models, some of the biggest names in the music industry, and bottles and bottles of champagne? The mission to find a cure for breast cancer.
    The team of designers, mainly British, included Stella McCartney, Julien Macdonald, and Vivienne Westwood. Each had to come up with a frock based on either the Moet and Chandon logo or the 'Fashion Targets' Breast Cancer' logo. No surprise then that a host of champagne coloured garments came sashaying down the catwalk. But this is where convention ended. Glitz and glamour, beads and bottoms.... the variety and inventiveness of the designers was extraordinary. And that's because most of these gowns are going to go under the hammer in December in aid of research in breast cancer.
    Ben de Lisi came up with three pieces for the occasion, and in handpainting the chosen logo on his silk organza gown discovered not only an affinity with Jackson Pollock but also the desire to do art totally independent of fashion.
    Julien Macdonald added the glamour to the night. He dressed Jodie Kidd in her finale number, giving her as much fizz and sparkle as any bottle of bubbly: 'It's an amazing champagne-coloured chiffon dress covered in crystals, diamonds, lots of gold studs. It's very sparkly, very sexy, it basically shows a woman as being sexy, female but somebody who's very strong at the same time - and fun!' Sophie Ellis-Bexter took a break from the recording studio to take a turn on the catwalk, modeling favourite designer Jacques Azagury's creation: 'There are crossovers between music and modeling, the fashion thing. But I think that one of the main things where it differs is that the model has low status where as singer would have higher status for the same sort of thing - for fronting something. I think that modeling agencies should probably work more like record companies and put up an advance against each model. That would probably be a good idea.' Amanda Wakeley's the designer who's headed up the British Fashion industry's charity work for breast cancer. She was amazed at how the whole industry managed to unite in the common goal of fighting the killer disease: 'We've just had amazing support from the whole fashion industry, be it the magazines, the models, the model agencies - everyone's really pulled together and I think it does the fashion industry great credit because it's an industry known for its competitiveness and its meanness and all that. But it's not true actually, you know, when you see the whole industry pull together for charity.' And as Ben de Lisi put it, women are who designers style for, why not use the proceeds from this massive industry to fund one of the biggest battles women have to face?
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