Smoking like it's out of fashion

They are fashionable young women - two models and an actress united by a sense of style. But what marked out Kate Moss, Lou Doillon and India May was not the glamorous clothes they wore for the launch of Vivienne Westwood's retrospective show at the V&A but the fact that all three were smoking.

Lighting up is increasingly a matter for public debate, with the government under pressure to introduce some sort of curb on lighting up in public places.

But it seems the message being given out by these young women last night is that smoking is still very much the norm. Fashionable, even.

Supermodel Moss, wearing a vintage Westwood dress bought from second hand store Relic in west London, looked ever so slightly coy with a cigarette in her hand.

Doillon, daughter of Jane Birkin, had a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other.

May is one of the favourite models of Westwood, who seemed like the happiest woman in London as she cut a giant pink ribbon to open the show. It celebrates over three decades of her influential designs and the private launch drew a huge crowd.

Sadie Frost, who once modelled for Westwood's 1988 Time Machine collection, wore a black strappy gown and was with boyfriend Jackson Scott.

Mother and daughter Jerry Hall and Lizzie Jagger had matching tumblinglocks, deep red lips and anklelength Westwood gowns.

Otherguests included Tracey Emin, Bob Geldof, Bella Freud, Betty Jackson, Manolo Blahnik, Jo and Leah Wood and quintessential Westwood models Sarah Stockbridge and Jibby Beane.

Those who joined the queue to see the exhibition, which opens to the public on Thursday, gave it a unanimous thumbs up.

The largest exhibition the V&A has dedicated to a British designer, it includes more than 150 outfits - from Westwood's Let it Rock collection of 1971 through to the latest autumn/winter 2004 show.

Highlights include rare items from her early punk days of Sex and Seditionaries, squiggle print pirate outfits from 1981, the 1982 buffalo girl look, the mini crini skirt from 1985, corsets tops and tartan circa 1991 and the infamous purple platform shoes that caused Naomi Campbell to fall on the catwalk in 1993.

The exhibition, put together by Claire Wilcox, uses many pieces from the V&A's own archive. The museum started acquiring Westwood's work in 1981 and the archive has grown in to one of the largest public collections of her designs in the world.

"You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes," says Westwood, who celebrates her 63rd birthday next week. A sentiment that last night's crowd will no doubt wholeheartedly agree with.