At Royal Theatre Drury Lane, a full home had taken their seats on the behest of the voice of God, who occurred to be Sir Ian McKellen. Onstage, a large projection of Massive Ben struck 8 p.m. — the place the dials remained for one more 12 minutes. The viewers wasn’t stunned: Trend exhibits all the time begin late.
On the eve of London Trend Week, this was Vogue World, a one-night-only leisure extravaganza full of celebrities from trend and the humanities each onstage and off. After being photographed, A-listers and ticket holders descended a pink carpet lined with roses (accompanied by music from a dwell orchestra) and up the theater steps, the place most had been greeted by a receiving line that included the mastermind of the night, Anna Wintour.
“Thanks for coming,” she stated from behind her signature darkish glasses and in a silver trench coat, flanked by the film director Baz Luhrmann (pleasant) and the British Vogue editor Edward Enninful (much less so). “I do hope everybody enjoys the present.”
For Condé Nast, the writer of Vogue, a lot is driving on the success of its Vogue World enterprise after its debut in New York final 12 months. The would possibly of magazines has crumbled, and the way forward for trend might be as blockbuster leisure.
And Ms. Wintour is betting on occasions like this one to deliver loads of sponsors and patrons keen to pay for one-night-only entry to the starry Vogue universe over which she reigns (to not point out promoting consumers for the accompanying dwell protection and social media content material).
On Thursday night time, her full energy was on show, with insiders chattering that she persuaded Michael Kors to bump his New York present up a day in order that fashions might fly to London in time. There have been cocktail bars hosted by Gucci and Burberry and a coat test sponsored by Coach giving out free pashminas, whereas Harry Kinds’s new magnificence model, Pleasing, was accessible within the loos.
There have been additionally, as one onlooker stated with a close to gasp, “actually well-known individuals in all places”: Leonardo DiCaprio in a black baseball cap, Kate Winslet in a white trouser swimsuit, Sienna Miller revealing her naked child bump in Schiaparelli couture. The Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie had been there, and so was Twiggy, the face of Swinging Sixties London, in addition to nearly each London designer one might consider, together with Erdem, Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard, all taking a uncommon night time off forward of their trend week exhibits.
Then got here the 37 minute stage spectacle itself, directed by the “Crown” author Stephen Daldry and designed to have fun London’s heritage as a cultural powerhouse and help the town’s performing arts (proceeds from the ticket gross sales, about $2.5 million, might be donated to British performing arts organizations).
After curtain up, Kate Moss stalked onto the stage in an ethereal John Galliano for Maison Margiela robe, vogueing because the opera singer Hongni Wu sang “After I Am Laid in Earth” from Dido and Aeneas. FKA Twigs and Cara Delevingne shared a kiss mid-show in a re-creation of the Madonna and Britney Spears second on the MTV Video Music Awards 20 years in the past.
Stormzy, the British rapper, sang because the actress Sophie Okonedo, wearing ornate Elizabethan regalia by Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood, recited strains from William Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” And James Corden, Ms. Miller, James McAvoy and different tartan-clad A-listers carried out a comedy skit that then led right into a tribute to “My Honest Girl.”
“Whether or not you’re keen on Stormzy, Shakespeare or Stella McCartney, the performing arts and trend solely make one another stronger,” stated Mark Guiducci, the inventive editorial director of Vogue, who labored carefully with Mr. Daldry on the present. “We wished to indicate that obstacles between the cultural disciplines not exist.”
Towards the tip, Annie Lennox, dressed with a heavy hat tip to London’s cockney pearly kings and queens by Richard Quinn and backed by the London Group Gospel Choir, got here out belting her Eighties hit “Candy Goals (Are Fabricated from This)” as fashions together with Emily Ratajkowski, Ashley Graham and Jill Kortleve walked in appears from the newest trend collections. For the finale, 4 of the unique supermodels — Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington — closed the present as practically all of the performers got here onstage.
Everybody, from the style college students who nabbed free tickets to attendees from the Vogue 100 Membership — the place membership prices $100,000 a 12 months — was on their toes and dancing. All had been out by 10 p.m. sharp, when the doorways closed and Vogue World was disassembled. The theater was then reconfigured in a single day to get again to common programming: the Disney musical “Frozen,” the subsequent day. That’s leisure.
