Diane von Furstenberg Cruises A Florence Garden (Fashion Wire Daily)

Florence, Italy - The latest designer to launch into the foreign cruise runway moment is Diane von Furstenberg who staged a charming show in a beautiful Florentine garden on Wednesday, June 18, as celebrity and sports greats mingled with enough Italian aristocrats to elect a new king.

Few things summed up Dianes drawing power better than her front row where Tony Parker and Eva Longoria sat between princes and princesses of the Corsini, Torlonia, Borromeo and Pucci family, along with Western Europes greatest dandy Lapo Elkann.

It being Diane, this cruise also attracted the great and the good of fashion media: Vanity Fairs Elizabeth Saltzman, Suzy Menkes and Hamish Bowles, plus a smattering of designers - Christian Louboutin, Eva Cavalli and ever elegant Eric Wright.

"Its fantastic to be back here in Florence, a city which I have always loved," beamed von Furstenberg, who graciously introduced to a score of editors Bruna Sequalino, the "modista" who actually made up the original collection of the designers most famous contribution to fashion, the wrap dress, in the nearby town of Montevarchi.

Russian uber beauty Natalia Vodianova wore one of those dresses from that first 1974 series as the final look in the show, splendidly staged on an elevated catwalk built between two lines of box hedges in the truly stupendous Torrigiani garden, completed with an extraordinary tower folly and a striking stature of an ancestor underneath which the 60 looks appeared.

"I never expected any of this to happen. Then la Diane called me last Friday out of the blue and I was stunned. She came here in the Seventies, and I was honored to work for this fashion princess. She had great creativity. She still has," Sequalino said, sitting down post show to a candle lit "picnic" dinner for 400 below the tower.

The collection was a witty take on travel style entitled "La Petite Valise," which contained lots of cool in-jokes, like a suede trench composed of a photocopy of von Furstenbergs passport. Though, try as we might, we did not see the bit with the date of birth.

Also impressive was a series of handkerchief dresses with witty prints of miniature planes, antique hotel keys or old tourist maps. Altogether, some great first date outfits, guaranteed to impress any admiring galant. No wonder it got a huge applause from the mega tony audience. The Torlonia family fortune was gained by saving the Vatican from ruin in the 18th century, the Corsini were the wealthiest merchants in Florence and the Borromeo produced several cardinals, oh, and even their own saint.

"Its been a great week. I have been working with my granddaughter Talita and she was the one who suggested I put the original dress in the show," smiled Diane.

"I told Talita last night that it was important to have plenty of boyfriends before you chose the right one. And I think she got the message," confided von Furstenberg, as her pretty pre-teen granddaughter strolled off arm in arm with Vodianovas handsome blond son Lucas. The kiddy couple even took a runway bow later with Diane, Natalia and the designers designer Nathan Jenden.

The show was the key event in Pitti W, the womens wear section of Pitti, the giant menswear salon in Florence that is the best organized fashion trade show on the planet, bar none. Pittis organizers Raffaello Napoleone and Sibila della Gherardesca go to great efforts to use the outstanding architectural natural beauty of Florence. But even by their remarkable standards this was special.

The soiree was also the latest mega cruise collection event on the ever-growing calendar of whats turned into a new international season: Dior in New York, Chanel in Miami, and Gucci in Rome next week.

But few things will match this evening, which underlined one of the great tragedies of contemporary Italian fashion - the main collections are staged in industrial Milan, not Renaissance Florence or classical Rome. Un grosso peccato - a real pity - but thats the way it is.