By Neil Sears and Rebecca English


Sibling rivalry: Kate caught the eye of a prince when she decided to model on the catwalk... and Pippa soon followed in her footsteps


Sashaying along the catwalk in a see-through dress never did Kate Middleton any harm – in fact it helped her bag a prince.

So her younger sister Pippa needed no second bidding when she was invited to try her own hand at modelling.

She was one of a group of Edinburgh University undergraduates who took part in a charity fashion event in 2004, two years after Kate’s now-famous stint as a mannequin.


Pippa and her friends had ‘mugshots’ taken for the show’s programme, in which they appeared naked but for a large name card.

For the event itself, the then 20-year-old Miss Middleton wore five very different outfits ranging from a day-glo skirt and top to an African-print dress and a cricket sweater.

Among the designers whose work was modelled by Pippa, an English Literature undergraduate, were Stella McCartney and Ted Baker.


Catwalk kitten: Pippa with fellow students from Edinburgh University and Art College in the charity fashion show


And according to other students involved in the event, she revelled in the attention. ‘Pippa was a very pretty girl with a phenomenally trim, sporty figure,’ said one. ‘She looked great – and she knew it.’

A university contemporary said: ‘In this fashion show Pippa was among a tight-knit Sloaney set who would hang out with Prince Will when he was over from St Andrews University (where he and Kate studied).

‘They were very “country”, and would go off shooting at each other’s estates at the weekend.’

The show, which raised money for a cancer charity, ran for two nights at a nightclub and was compered by Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow.

Navel gazing: The ‘mugshot’ reveals her belly-button.... and, right, modelling a cricket sweater with frizzy hair

The French insult Pippa's derriere!

Since her appearance as chief bridesmaid at the royal wedding, Pippa Middleton’s looks and figure have won admiration around the world.

But not everyone is prepared to join in the chorus of praise for the 27-year-old.
A leading French magazine has launched a blistering attack on Miss Middleton, calling her ‘commonplace’.

Rear view: Pippa, left, in the catwalk show and in THAT dress... but she was described as 'commonplace'


The article in Le Point, written by ‘intellectual’ author Patrick Besson, even urges her boyfriend, Alex Loudon, to leave what he describes as ‘the daughter of an air hostess and toy maker’ who is obsessed with collecting rich boyfriends.

The piece viciously picks the emerging style icon apart – attacking her beauty-spot, teeth, and even world-famous bottom saying it is ‘bony and not rounded enough’.

Besson, a self-avowed communist, adds: ‘The whole package is crowned by a flat smile, vulgar, empty, inert, insincere, greedy, cold, shameful, stupid, uninterested, immature ... that signifies nothing, and engages no one.’

The author also uses his diatribe to criticise the British ‘obsession’ with the wedding of William and Kate, saying it is just an excuse for the public to sit around drinking beer and breaking wind.


source:dailymail