LONDON, Paris, Milan and now . . . Bury. The latest name on the international fashion atlas is our own borough.

September sees the first events in what organisers want to become an annual fashion week, which raises cash for the Radcliffe-based Bury Hospice from the borough's style-conscious citizens.

A fashion ball at the Elizabethan Suite is already a sell-out, and now rehearsals are well under way for the other big event of the week - Fashion Tunnel 2000.

As well as being plenty of fun, organisers hope the week will raise thousands of pounds for the Dumers Lane hospice.

This will be the centrepiece of the celebrations at Bury's Sol Viva nightclub on Thursday, September 24.

The fashion tunnel will be available to all-comers, featuring a series of hair, beauty and fashion treatments culminating in a photo-shoot at the end.

The Fashion Week is the brainchild of its organiser Paul Freely, who has drawn on his experience of charity events in New York, where he worked as a celebrity hairdresser for many years before returning to his home town of Bury.

As well as the fashion tunnel there will be a fashion show at the nightclub, and six local beauties are being put through their paces every week at the nightclub in preparation. The six local models - Paul has dubbed them his "Silver Girls" because of the silver theme of the show - will model futuristic hairpieces as the centrepiece of the show.

"All we need now are some future male stars for the catwalk," said Paul, whose salon is on Bury New Road, Whitefield.

"We are always on the lookout for fresh young talent!"

The fashion tunnel will wend its way through the nightclub, with customers receiving beauty and hair treatments, styling by Whitefield-based photographic stylist Hillary Shaffer and a picture by photographer John Brandwood.

All profits from the £25 entrance fee will go to the charity.

The evening will round off with a celebrity "Fashion in the Wash" party in the Viva part of the club, hosted by sponsors CK Appliances.

Organisers, who have invited Bury's own Emmerdale star Lisa "Mandy Dingle" Riley to join in the fun, hope the party will raise more than £2,000 for Bury Hospice.

"The Fashion in the Wash party is trying to bring home the ethos of Bury Fashion Week to the younger generation of Bury," said a spokesman for CK Appliances.

There will be 400 tickets split evenly between VIP guests and members of the general public.

For more details of fashion week call Paul Freely International Hair and Beauty on (0161) 766 1400.

For more information on, or tickets for, the Fashion in the Wash party contact CK Appliances on (0161) 763 4146.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.