Plum dress is ripe for celebs

It's every woman's nightmare at this time of year: you walk into a party and glaring at you over the goat's-cheese-and-onion tarts is a woman wearing an identical dress. Thankfully for these celebrities, they chose the same dress - a plum-coloured satin fishtail by Alexander McQueen - on very different occasions.

Ulrika Jonsson, 35, wore it to her book launch. Jerry Hall donned it for the Evening Standard drama awards. And, on the other side of the pond, Hannibal actress Julianne Moore chose the British designer's outfit for a charity event.

Whitney Houston liked hers so much she wore it for the cover of her new album, Just Whitney, and Madonna chose it for the Los Angeles premiere of Swept Away. McQueen has always been hugely popular with the fashion pack for his outlandish creations, which are as complex as they are beautiful. He told the Standard: "I don't court celebrities, they come to me. It is important to me that I dress women whom I admire."

The knee-length dress everyone is now wearing - from McQueen's autumn collection - passed virtually unnoticed during his show, upstaged by far more avant-garde numbers.

So why has this particular dress proved so popular? The sweetheart neckline is cute - far more demure than the staple strappy dress that usually appears on the red carpet. The colour is easy - plum suits blondes, redheads and brunettes alike.

High-shine satin isn't very forgiving on the hips. But far and beyond these considerations, the likely reason for the dress's popularity is that it is by McQueen. In a celebrity culture obsessed by what's cool, McQueen is the ultimate label. No matter that the dress could easily be mistaken for something off the high street: the label gives it an edge in the eyes of the wearer. McQueen rather liked his position as cult designer to a select few. How he is reacting to such a motley crew of celebrities pitching up in his plum-coloured dress is anyone's guess. And how ironic that the designer who least craves star endorsement gets the most. Unlike most publicity-hungry designers, McQueen will not lend his clothes, willy-nilly, to any celebrity who asks. It is unlikely any of the women pictured here was given the dress for free, or even that their stylist borrowed it for the night. They would have had to pay the full £780 like the rest of us.