British fashion is crying out for its own Met Gala – but it’s not Vogue World

As a curtain-raiser for London Fashion Week, it was a world away from New York’s traffic-halting couture extravaganza — and more like a night at a tawdry shopping mall, writes Melanie Rickey

Sienna Miller at Vogue World (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

The sequins may have settled, but we’re still scratching our heads. What exactly was Vogue World?

This celebrity-packed red-carpet event, held on Thursday at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane – which had been billed variously as “fashion’s big night out”, “a one-night-only performance” and “Britain’s answer to the Met Gala” – was so much more than just a relentlessly hyped curtain-raiser for London Fashion Week. And also, somehow, so much less.

If the sight of Sienna Miller displaying her naked baby bump cossetted in Schiaparelli couture and a final-curtain appearance by the original line-up of 90s supermodels – including a now-fully rejuvenated Linda Evangelista – were burning into your retina as you went to sleep last night, what you experienced was a militarily orchestrated global marketing campaign. The real Vogue World, if you will.