With a little help from her friends

Tamsin Blanchard reports on the fashion design debut of Paul McCartney' s daughter

All but one of the students graduating from Central St Martin's School of Art in London yesterday had to rely upon the usual mixture of up-and-coming models and students to wear their clothes in the final degree show.

The exception among the 71 graduates was Stella McCartney, daughter of Paul and Linda, who was able to call on supermodels to wear her designs.

Her debut collection of seven outfits featuring masculine tailoring was worn by a trio of supermodels, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Jasmin Le Bon.

Paul and Linda were there to cheer their daughter on. He said after the show: "I am the proudest dad in the world. I thought that it was brilliant and Stella has come such a long way since she first started out."

Before the show on the opening day of Graduate Fashion Week at the Business Design Centre in Islington, Ms Campbell sat backstage, hiding in a corner, having her make-up done. She did not want to be inundated by requests from other graduates to model their clothes. "Stella's a friend of mine," she said. "When I realised her show was today, I said I'm coming."

The young McCartney asked her supermodel friends personally and they agreed to model for her as a favour. "It just goes to show, we support each other," said Ms Campbell.

For the other students graduating yesterday, it was time to learn the cut-throat ways of the fashion industry first hand. It's not what you wear, but who's wearing it. Straight after Ms McCartney's two minutes on the runway, most of the photographers packed up their cameras and left. They had the picture they had been waiting for.