Kate Moss led the way at the Swarovski Fashion Rocks event last night
Whitney Houston, the American R&B singer, made her first appearance on a stage in four years at Swarovski Fashion Rocks for The Prince’s Trust at the Albert Hall in London last night.
The event, hosted by the Hollywood stars Samuel L. Jackson, in Giorgio Armani, and Uma Thurman, wearing a see-through, black lace Valentino gown, was a star-studded gala of music legends, high-octane glamour, the world’s top models and some of the most sought-after and expensive fashion in the world.
Ms Houston, who wore a white Valentino evening gown embroidered with crystals for her rare public appearance, made an impassioned plea on behalf of The Prince’s Trust, the youth charity established by the Prince of Wales in 1976, which has helped more than 550,000 young people.
“It is our responsibility to empower young people with a positive direction for the future. Important organisations like The Prince’s Trust offer that opportunity,” she said. Ms Houston, 43, a Grammy-award-winning recording artist, actress and producer, has seen her image and record sales slide during her much-publicised battle against narcotics and alcohol addiction and stints in rehab in both 2005 and 2006. Now divorced from the singer, Bobby Brown, and restored to fighting-fit form, she is working on a new album due for release next year.
In another of the evening’s surprises, the actress, Gwyneth Paltrow, took to the stage to announce the first-ever Swarovski Fashion Rocks Lifetime Achievement Award to the Italian couturier, Valentino, 75, who will retire after presenting his 91st haute couture collection in Paris in January.
The supermodel, Kate Moss, arrived in a 1920s-inspired ‘flapper’ dress, encrusted with 60,000 Swarovski crystal beads in silver, dove-grey and antique-green and embellished with swirling tassels, which was inspired by the dress she wore when she went on her first date with then-boyfriend, the actor Johnny Depp.
The dress, valued at more than £40,000, will be auctioned on ebay.co.uk to raise further funds for The Prince’s Trust.
Also among the guests were Princess Beatrice, wearing Marchesa and Naomi Campbell in a one-off, black lace and crystal Dolce & Gabbana gown, who arrived with the designers, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.
The actress, Joely Richardson wore Yves Saint Laurent, Lady Gabriella Windsor chose a silvery-grey Catherine Walker and the actress, Naomi Watts chose Calvin Klein. The former supermodel Claudia Schiffer wore Chanel and Dame Edna Everage a red beaded and ostrich feathered gown designed, she said ‘by my son, Kenny’.
Other celebrities included Patty LaBelle in Basso & Brooke, Selina Scott in vintage Ossie Clark, Tamara Beckwith in a red Valentino column gown, Yasmin Le Bon in vintage Chanel couture and Tara Palmer Tomkinson in Azzedine Alaia.
A cast of international singers, rock ‘n’ rollers and bands formed fashion+music marriages with the world’s leading designers and performed on a semi-circular stage surmounted by a two-ton, 50ft high chandelier encrusted with a million Swarovski crystals, as the models paraded around them.
Alicia Keyes performed her new hit single, ‘No One’, wearing a specially-designed Giorgio Armani creation of a sequinned, racer-back, waistcoat, complete with tails, over skinny black jeans.
The ‘godfather of punk rock’, Iggy Pop, bared his soul and his chest in Versace. The young British designer, Christopher Kane, leader of the new ‘body-conscious’ fashion trend, had his imagination stretched in order to expand his signature style to fit the voluptuous, 15-stone, size 20 curves of the American rocker, Beth Ditto, who appeared with The Gossip.
Other pairings included Johnny Borrell and Razorlight wearing Burberry; the multi-platinum, Brit and Grammy Award-winning soul singer Joss Stone, who performed her new single, ‘Baby Baby Baby’, wearing a Francisco Costa-designed gown from the new Calvin Klein collection; Lily Allen, who had a special Chanel gown customised for her by Karl Lagerfeld; Dame Shirley Bassey in Marchesa; the Pussycat Dolls’ Nicole Scherzinger in Valentino; the super-producer and hip hop singer, Timbaland, in Dolce & Gabbana; Roisin Murphy in Gucci; Marc Almond in YSL and Shy Child with Stella McCartney.
Swarovski Fashion Rocks for The Prince’s Trust 2007 marked the third time this unique fusion of fashion and music has been organised. It was launched in London in 2003 and subsequently staged in Monaco in 2005.
The event will be shown on Channel 4 at 10.20pm on Saturday night.
