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September 30, 2009

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Jackson's boots made for walking - at auction

CRYSTAL-STUDDED boots that Michael Jackson intended to wear on his planned comeback tour fetched 10,000 euros (US$14,650) at a celebrity fund raiser chaired by his sister, Janet.

The charity event, held on the sidelines of Milan Fashion Week, attracted such fashion luminaries as Donatella Versace and model Linda Evangelista, as well as rapper and producer Kanye West.

Organizers said the event late on Monday netted a total of 756,000 euros for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), a nonprofit organization.

The event included a charity dinner in a central Milan palace and continued into the early hours of yesterday with DJ Bob Sinclar serving his famous mixes on an upstairs dance floor.

"I'd just like to thank everyone here in the global fashion community who've done so much to help amfAR and to support HIV/AIDS research," Jackson told celebrity diners, who paid anywhere from 1,500 to 8,000 euros apiece to attend the dinner.

"When this terrible pandemic began everyone who was infected died of AIDS. Today with your help millions of people are living with HIV."

She remembered the 5,000 who died of the disease every day.

Evangelista recalled the death of her first booking agent due to AIDS in the early days of the epidemic.

"Those were desperate times for so many of us. I watched him die and helped bury him, not understanding any of it," Evangelista said. "The fashion industry was especially hard hit by AIDS."

During the auction, Sudanese model Alex Wek helped stir interest in the Giuseppe Zanotti-designed boots that featured 3,000 multicolored Swarovski beads, which Jackson planned to wear on the opening night of his comeback.

"Growing up in southern Sudan, I did not know a lot of pop stars. But Michael did touch a lot of people," she said in tribute to the singer, who died in June.

A custom black leather jacket by Canadian twin designers Dean and Dan Caten of the DSquared2 label set off a bidding war between rapper West and Diesel designer Renzo Rosso. The designer prevailed with a bid of 36,000 euros, the highest price at the auction.

Other items included a Fendi bicycle with GPS and a leather-encased chain that earned 16,000 euros.





 

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