Kate splits from Pete

The opening night of London Fashion Week was dominated by the one supermodel who wasn't even there - Kate Moss.

With the fashionistas talking of little else, designers offered the model their full support as it emerged she may finally have ditched lover Pete Doherty, the pop star with a drug habit so bad it makes Moss's £200-a-day cocaine addiction pale into insignificance.

Moss, 31, currently in New York, has, according to the Sun, finally ended her relationship with Doherty for the sake of her two-year-old daughter. The news comes hard on the heels of revelations in one Sunday paper of lesbian sex coupled with an unquenchable thirst for drugs.

The split prompted Doherty, 26, to do what he does best - he went on yet another "bender" in Ibiza over the weekend.

Friends rallied to support Moss at the after-show parties that launched fashion week. The model, photographed snorting cocaine, faces losing millions of pounds in contracts - among them H&M and Dior - following the disclosure.

Zandra Rhodes gave Moss her full sympathy and applauded her decision to leave "that silly boy". She said: "I think it is awful that she has made such big news, but she made a big mistake in ever getting together with that silly boy."

Tracey Emin unleashed an unfettered, Anglo Saxon defence of her friend. The couple had recently holidayed together. "People should just f***ing leave her well alone. They are just jealous of her," said Emin.

"She is a great friend of mine and we recently went on holiday together and I can tell you I have never seen her take the stuff once.

"I hate the stuff - I have never touched it and I have never seen her go near it. Kate is professional, hard-working and good at her job. It is not right that these pictures have been splashed all over the place. There are more people in the House of Commons taking cocaine than people in the fashion business."

Fashion heiress Francesca Versace, the niece of Gianni Versace, said she had known the supermodel since she was a young girl .