LONDON FASHION WEEK HIT BY FUR PROTEST!

Hilton targeted in anti-fur demo.

Hilton had wowed the audience with diamond jewellery. Hotel heiress Paris Hilton's sparkling debut at London Fashion Week was eclipsed when she was hit by flour bombs in a fur protest. The US socialite opened Julien Macdonald's show on the first night wearing diamonds valued at £2m. But animal rights campaigners from Peta showered flour over Hilton and the designer, who uses fur, as they went to an after-show party in Mayfair. London Fashion Week runs until Saturday at the Natural History Museum.

"There is nothing remotely fashionable about the torture and death of animals killed for fur," said Peta Europe's Yvonne Taylor.

"Julien Macdonald may have been able to ignore images of bloody skinned animals gasping for breath in the past, but hopefully a dash of flour will help him rise to the occasion and forsake fur once and for all." A spokesman for Macdonald said he did not wish to comment on the incident outside The Cuckoo Club. Earlier, in the first day of the bi-annual event audiences saw Autumn-Winter collections by Paul Costelloe, inspired by post-war Britain, and Amanda Wakeley, known for her glamorous tailoring.

Some 170 designers will show off their wares in a series of 48 catwalk shows over the week. Unusually, US Vogue editor Anna Wintour is expected to make a visit, widely interpreted as suggesting the London scene is back in vogue.

BBC NEWS REPORT