mario testino

>> Mario Testino swept into London briefly last night to receive the inaugural Moet & Chandon Etoile Award, honoring an individual of "exceptional talent and influence." Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, and more joined Testino at the '30s-themed party with a black-and-white dress code, co-hosted by Lady Amanda Harlech, Lucinda Chambers, and Hamish Bowles at the Park Lane Hotel. Moss, who arrived on the arm of her new husband Jamie Hince, was later spotted challenging the makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury to a dance-off.

Famed photographer Mario Testino was the man of the hour as he received the Moet & Chandon Etoile Award in London last night. He was joined by Sienna Miller, Kate Moss, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for the evening, which was held at the Park Lane Hotel. Sienna posed with Mario on her way into the event, and Kate covered up her gown with a neutral coat while Rosie showed a little leg on the carpet. All three ladies have worked with Mario in the past, with the photog most recently snapping Rosie for the Burberry Body campaign and capturing Kate's gorgeous wedding photos for Vogue. It's been a busy week in England with the start of London Fashion Week, and Sienna showed up for the Burberry Prorsum show and also checked out Matthew Williamson's presentation.

>> Kate Moss tells Vogue's September 2011 issue — which she covers — that after a romantic trip to Thailand two years into her relationship with Jamie Hince, “we were just so loved up, and he asked me to marry him every day.” So what made her finally take the plunge, at 37? Apparently, the British TV series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. “I am so romantic about gypsies,” Kate explains. “They’re not allowed to do anything until they get married. So they all get married really young, at sixteen. You can’t believe the dresses. They’re like blinging butterflies times ten; they can’t move down the aisle! It’s so genius. I was just watching Jamie, so cute, and I was like, these girls, they just spend their whole life waiting for that day — let’s do it!”

“I’ve met them all throughout the years,” Mario Testino — who captured Vogue's extensive portfolio of Moss's wedding (she shifted her wedding date from Saturday to Friday to accommodate Testino's schedule) — says of Kate's past paramours, “but [Jamie] is the most real. He has a great sense of humor.”

But, as the wedding date nears, Hince “is terrified,” says Moss. As for herself: “Let’s put it this way. If I didn’t have my friends . . . I don’t know how people do it. I’ve had big birthday parties, and I’ve thrown parties for other people, but this is a completely different thing. It’s the Met Ball! Because you have to look at every piece of cutlery; the details are intense. And then you wake up thinking about the ballet shoes for the girls; is the satin ribbon right? I’ve gone mental. Jamie thinks I’m mad, asking, ‘Are you gonna be all right? After the wedding, I’m hoping you’ll get back to normal!’”

Of her vision of the wedding, Moss says: “I wanted it to be kind of dreamy and 1920s, when everything is soft-focus. The Great Gatsby. The code name was GG for a while. That light and that kind of fun decadence. It’s rock-’n’-roll Great Gatsby!”

It follows, then, that John Galliano, who designed Moss's wedding dress, was inspired by Jazz Age photographs of F. Scott's wife Zelda Fitzgerald. Moss says she wanted “a classic Galliano, those chiffon thirties kind. I’ve lived in his dresses for years, and they just make me feel so comfortable. But it’s so much more couture, couture, couture. Oh, my God, the work that’s going into the dress!”

As Vogue tells it: Moss and Galliano "discussed everything on the phone, and then, when John was out of rehab for the first of four marathon fittings, he brought her 'bags full of bits, and pulled tulle and sequins and veils and flowers out. And then we just kind of pinned things together, like the old days, you know?' The skirts are symbolically licked with the beaded plumes of a mythical phoenix, 'delicate and defiant, like Kate.'"

"She dared me to be John Galliano again,” the designer added. “I couldn’t pick up a pencil. It’s been my creative rehab.” The relationship goes both ways, though. Just before Moss, ever the model, sets off to her wedding church she requests “a few words, a story to inspire her — she loves a bit of direction!” Galliano says. “I told her, ‘You have a secret — you are the last of the English roses — and when he lifts your veil he’s going to see your wanton past!’”

Later, the favor is returned: When Kate's father thanks Galliano for “the beautiful dress,” every wedding guest stands in ovation, causing the designer's eyes to well up.

>> Arizona Muse and Freja Beha Erichsen inspired rumors of a romantic relationship during the couture shows last month, and over the past few months, they have been captured embracing by Terry Richardson and featured together in two different Karl Lagerfeld-lensed editorials. Now, they pair up again for Mario Testino and Vogue UK's September 2011 issue in a shoot inspired by the Dutch Masters which Alexandra Shulman says "earns its place among Vogue classics." Beha Erichsen also serves as the magazine's September 2011 cover girl.

>> Since we're doing Kate Moss wedding-related flashbacks — and Mario Testino is set to be Moss and fiance Jamie Hince's official wedding photographer — we wanted to share: Testino has actually captured Moss as bride once before, for the Burberry Spring 2000 ad campaign. Perhaps they provide a preview at what Moss's actual wedding pictures will turn out like (minus all the Burberry check, of course)?