Blowout at Buckingham Palace

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So Buckingham Palace's Australian reception is done and dusted. Three hundred and fifty guests descended on the palace last night for a special meet-and-greet with Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, ahead of next week's royal visit downunder. So far there don't seem to be terribly many photos of Andrej Pejic. But Antipodium designer Geoffrey J Finch snapped these two shots of Pejic en route to the do in a rather demure black vintage Versace pencil skirt and charcoal grey Paul Smith blazer (and not Jean Paul Gaultier, a rack of whose clothes, we hear, had been sent to Pejic prior to the event). Teamed with, Pejic tells frockwriter, an Issey Miyake blouse, black tights, boots from Australian high street chain Tony Bianco and his mum's vintage gold belt from the 1980s, the most extravagant aspect of the outfit was his coiffure: dead straight blond hair extensions which reached to his waist - the antithesis of his Bellatrix L'Estrange-meets-Marie-Antoinette up do at Myer's recent relaunch party. In the absence so far of any photographic evidence, did Pejic actually get to meet the Queen or did he just mill about the reception rooms while a select few were run past Her Majesty? "All the guests who attended last night's reception were presented to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh" a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told us.
 

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It is highly likely that Pejic and Australian singer-songwriter Gabriella Cilmi, both just turned 20, were the youngest invitees. 

Also in attendance were Finch, Collette Dinnigan, Yasmin Sewell, Jason Donovan, Hugh Jackman, chef Bill Granger, who assisted the royal kitchens in the preparation of lamingtons and pavlova (iconic Australian pastries) and Elle Macpherson, who curtseyed when meeting HM (see below) and looked equally demure in a nude silk cocktail dress and matching handbag and pumps. 

Not quite so demure was Australian novelist Kathy Lette, who rocked up to the event with her husband, British QC Geoffrey Robertson - both staunch Republicans - in an outfit emblazoned with pictures of corgis wearing crowns. 

The Queen was resplendent in what we are reliably informed was an eggplant silk cloque tailleur by British couturier Stewart Parvin.  

getty via daylife