Real catwalk in New York

Hale Bopp doesn't look too happy but certainly sets a trend at a cat fashion show in New York which was raising money for an animal shelter and celebrating the birthday of a famous hotel's resident feline

It was the catwalk that really was a catwalk. Cats dressed in everything from an Elvis costume to a sequined satin dress were strutting their stuff at New York's Algonquin Hotel.

The feline fashion show unfolded in the dining room where Dorothy Parker presided over famously catty Round Table literary luncheons in the 1920s.

Thursday's show benefited an animal welfare group and honored Matilda, the Algonquin's resident cat, who has just turned 13.

She is the hotel's ninth cat since the tradition started in the 1930s, when actor John Barrymore dubbed a bedraggled stray Hamlet.

Earlier in the day, Matilda, a pedigreed ragdoll breed with long, silky, cream-colored hair, held court on a chaise longue by the entrance.

In her honor, cocktails with names like Purr-tini and Pink Pussycat were being served at US$20 apiece to guests including representatives of the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, Long Island. The adoption shelter, which was to receive the proceeds of the benefit, offered more than a dozen homeless cats for adoption.

The Westchester Feline Club supplied the show-quality cats, with fashions created by New Jersey pet fashion company Meow Wear.

Matilda is an Algonquin celebrity, receiving about 30 e-mails a month

Agencies