Inside London’s first Vogue World: Thong leotards and Anna Wintour’s VIP assembly line

On the red carpet at Vogue World, the stars are out in force. Here’s Sienna Miller, wearing a show-stopping Schiaparelli two-piece framing her growing pregnancy bump. Nicola Coughlan is wearing a halo. And now I stand before Anna Wintour, who is holding out her hand. “Hello, thank you for coming,” she says, shaking mine as I move along the assembly line, almost like I’m being greeted by a monarch. I’m at London’s first ever Vogue World, which is taking place at the city’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to raise funds for the UK’s cash-strapped arts scene. But it is, of course, also a very good excuse for a glamorous, star-studded party.

On a normal evening, this theatre would be teeming with seven-year-old girls watching Frozen: The Musical, but tonight, Conde Nast has booted them out in the name of philanthropy, and packed it out with A-listers, from Stormzy to Brian Cox and Princess Eugenie. The build-up has been filled with anticipation: it’s been pre-emptively dubbed Britain’s answer to the Met Gala, and rumour has it that Leonardo DiCaprio will be making an appearance – but advance details were kept under tight lock and key.

The roads between Covent Garden and Holborn have been closed off, cars replaced by branded “Vogue World” vans, black fencing, and crews of runners pushing rails of designer clothing towards the stage door. Security guards with earpieces are frantically ushering tourists out of the way, while Vogue employees are pitched up next door to the theatre in FishWorks, an upmarket chippy, as they work through the night to execute the masses of PR surrounding the event – one that has been well-timed to kick off London Fashion Week.

Behind that fencing is a dazzling red carpet, with every wall in eyeshot adorned with fresh, velvety roses to match the floor. A glowing Twiggy matches the red carpet, wearing a velvet suit and carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag. Jared Leto has scaled it back since his Met Gala cat costume, wearing a white suit jacket and dramatic blue eyeshadow. Simone Ashley wears a sheer beaded floor-length Tamara Ralph Couture dress. Jodie Turner-Smith is wearing a black Viktor & Rolf thong leotard. A chamber orchestra is playing as celebrities stop for their paparazzi moment and sign autographs.

As they arrive, the stars are greeted by an assembly line of Vogue VIPs. There stands Wintour, as we know, the magazine’s all-powerful editor-in-chief, wearing a silver trench coat with accentuated Cruella de Vil-style shoulder pads and her signature black sunglasses. Next to her are British Vogue’s outgoing editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, Australian film director Baz Luhrmann, and The Crown director Stephen Daldry (the latter two working on the event as creative director and director, respectively). The two editors present a united front at a time when rumours suggest that Wintour and Enninful are in the middle of an epic power struggle. Tonight, however, there are no signs of hostile relations: Wintour and Enninful chatter in between greeting guests, and seem to share a laugh.

All net proceeds from tonight’s ticket sales will be pledged to a range of performing arts organisations, including the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet (the final amount raised on the night has not yet been revealed). “The arts are under threat in the UK,” said Wintour of the fundraising decision. “Vogue World will be a timely reminder of how important they are, how vital a part of our lives, and how much they need our support.”

The best of British acting and musical talent are rubbing shoulders tonight, no doubt a huge testament to the supreme power of Wintour’s contacts book. Kate Winslet, incoming Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa, Emilia Clarke, Rita Ora, Top Boy’s Ashley Walters and Little Simz, Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley and Nicola Coughlan, as well as the whole Heartstopper crew, are all here. There are even some US representatives: Jared Leto and Cole Sprouse. Powerful people from the British arts scene have also turned up: Andrew Lloyd Webber, ex-Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey, and Alistair Spalding, artistic director of Sadler’s Wells. The list goes on.

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After the red carpet is over, we are ushered into an auditorium, where the orchestra pit level has been transformed into a 1920s-style jazz club, with round dining tables for the celebrities to sit at (the members of the public who paid £150 for general tickets are sitting in the balcony area). Victoria Beckham is rushed in as the red carpet is closing. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice are sitting in a royal box. Leonardo DiCaprio is keeping a low profile in the corner of another private box, with his baseball-cap-wearing entourage.

As for the theatrics itself, it feels like a star-studded flash mob crammed into a 37-minute show. Dozens of celebrities have been rolled out for this slightly chaotic variety performance, which comprises six acts, each one entirely unrelated to the last but all playing to the strengths of Britain’s arts scene.

A stone-faced Kate Moss opens the show with a supermodel power-walk across the stage and through the auditorium, wearing a silver cowl-neck dress, as opera singer Hongni Wu performs “When I Am Laid in Earth” from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, accompanied by the Southbank Sinfonia. Then, British musician and dancer FKA Twigs gives an ethereal performance joined by dozens of contemporary dancers from the Rambert Dance Company, before Twigs shares a fake smooch with a mohawk-clad British supermodel Cara Delevingne, who is dressed as a punk.

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The lights change, and Stormzy rises from atop a round table to deliver a moving rendition of his song “Crown”, followed by Sophie Okonedo, who presents a Shakespeare-inspired soliloquy, with the act ending in an unexpected but incredibly well-executed nightclub scene. For the next act, Royal Ballet principals Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell perform an extraordinary contemporary dance sequence in a welcome moment of serenity – the only act not to feature a surprise starry guest.

The sensory overload continues: James Corden, Sienna Miller, Cush Jumbo, James McAvoy and Harriet Walter arrive on stage as theatre ushers, dressed in matching Vivienne Westwood tartan suits, delivering a comedy sketch written by James Graham.

Succession actor Walter addresses tonight’s cause and pays tribute to Britain’s struggling performing arts scene, reminding the audience that front-of-house staff are often the acting stars of the future. “All those ushers you meet, all the ice-cream sellers, programme sellers, a lot of them are working actors, dancers, maybe writers, dancers of the future. They’re all part of this ritual that we all perform, every night at the same time, across the country at thousands of theatres.” James Corden cuts this emotional moment off: “Right, shall we separate the recycling and general waste?”

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For the grand finale, Annie Lennox, wearing a diamond-encrusted coat, performs “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”, accompanied by the London Community Gospel choir as well as a surprise quartet of the original supermodels: Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington. They are joined by Stella McCartney, Emily Ratajkowski, and Adowa Aboah in a flash mob style fashion show wearing British fashion labels like 16Arlington, Ahluwalia, Burberry, Maison Margiela, SS Daley and Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, with models circling round the auditorium.

It’s definitely exhilarating, if slightly discordant. If tonight is a showcase of British performing arts talent, well, then it proved we can quite literally do it all (and in 37 minutes).

But is Vogue World anything like the Met Gala? Absolutely not. The Met Gala is famed for its iconic yet often polarising themes, some of which have been cemented into fashion history (this year’s theme paid tribute to the late controversial Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, with both Doja Cat and Jared Leto styling themselves as Lagerfeld’s beloved white cat, Choupette). Tonight’s mood is one of old-school elegance: it feels classical, and much more London than New York’s Met Gala.

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While some were wondering if the event’s departure from London’s edgier vibe meant a certain cool factor was missing, in what was ultimately a pretty mainstream, run-of-the-mill awards-show-style display, it was certainly a love letter to the marriage between performance art and fashion – and the biggest hint yet of Vogue’s next chapter.

Vogue World is clear evidence that the brand is trying to reinsert itself into the arts circuit, especially at a time when Enninful, who has been credited for reigniting British Vogue’s image among younger audiences, will be stepping aside and moving into a more senior role at the company. With Wintour rumoured to be moving to London and turning her focus to the British arm of the company once Enninful has moved on, this evening could be a glimpse of what’s next.

Whatever the outcome of the Wintour-Enninful “feud” rumours, it certainly does feel like it is Wintour’s world, and we’re living in it.