The ‘Marbella Marbella’ campaign, initiated by composer Dario Poli, kicked off 2010 to a great start at the Hotel Incosol on Saturday night, when the glamorous Spanish TV compère Cristina Pita and marbellamarbella.es, opened the event to Agustin Torralbo’s couture winter collection, aptly named ‘Marbella Marbella’.

The night began with the terrific Welsh tenor Steven Lloyd-Morgan. With a beautifully rendered vocal solo, he welcomed the nearly 400 invited guests to raise their glasses in a toast to the town of Marbella, by downing a glass of the new ‘Marbella Marbella’ wines,  as he elegantly and robustly sang the famous Brindisi drinking song, from Verdi’s popular opera La Traviata.

Stevens’ first-class performance was later followed by the dynamic singing star from Cuba, Yanela Brooks, who wearing a dress designed by Agustin Torralbo for the occasion, powerfully sang two rhythmic up-tempo songs, which really took the excited audience with her.

After a few short speeches to thank the main sponsors, the Danish bank Nykredit, Fischer Mercedes of Marbella and the popular Scandinavian magazine Solkysten, the fashion show began with a steady, elegant stream of lovely models, starting with the younger ladies wearing modern designed costumes, then gradually, and in tempo to the styled music, lead to the most professional models, who were dressed in a fascinating variety of stunning, original and colourful designs, that often received spontaneous rounds of applause from the enthusiastic audience, which included buyers from as far as the Middle East who had come especially to see Torralbo’s new collection.

The fashion show ended with Agustin Torralbo leading all his models back on to the catwalk for a final display of the entire ‘Marbella Marbella’ collection. With cameras flashing, he was received with tumultuous applause and the show was brought to a stunning finale, when Yanela Brooks entered the stage once again, and sang her own brilliant interpretation of the song that started it all, Marbella Marbella in Spanish, interspersed with some words in English, which induced one media professional to write, “I was very impressed to hear the song for the very first time at Hotel Incosol last night, sung by Yanela Brooks.  It was simply sensational.” A video of the song can be seen on www.marbellamarbella.es and a slideshow with pictures of all the dresses.

A great raffle was held during the evening, where the winner was given the choice of selecting any dress that they had seen on the catwalk.