A bevy of local boys and girls strutted their stuff on stage and down into the audience at Todmorden Town Hall in fashions ranging from up to the date casual wear to bridalwear, via underwear sported by both sexes!

Organiser Jo Royle said the evening was great fun but also had a very serious point, raising money for Animals Asia charity. The show raised a bumper £850 and it will go to help free Moon Bear Manchester.

UK director of Animals Asia, Dave Neale, gave a talk about the bears' plight to open the event. Up to 7,000 of them are kept on bile farms in China and Vietnam in appalling caged conditions, suffering pain when they are "milked" for their bile by farmers twice a day.

The bile is used in Chinese medicine but Chinese medical practitioners stress that all bear bile products can be easily replaced by herbal or synthetic alternatives which are cheaper, more readily available and just as effective.

It takes about £5,000 to rescue a bear, which pays for buying the bear from the farmer, transportation to a sanctuary and extensive surgery and care.

The boys took over the stage from David modelling menswear from Hebden Bridge shop Klog and, to some appreciative laughter from the audience, underwear from Romanza in Hebden Bridge! At the break raffle prizes, headed by the watercolour painting of rescued Moon Bear by local artist Fran Jones, were won.

The second half of the show opened with eight girls dressed as gangsters in fishnets, dancing to a 1930s piece of music, four of them down to their first underwear sets of the night, from Romanza.

All the girls then modelled three underwear sets each, two ladieswear sets from Halo in Todmorden and then a selection of wedding dresses from Louise Greenwood Bridalwear of Rawtenstall, along with some bridal underwear from Romanza.

The boys returned for a filler set in men's underwear from Romanza giving the girls a chance to change for the finale, set to "Fever" and incorporating frilly knickers, waitress black aprons, black tops and suitably brightly coloured feather dusters, said Jo.

Although the audience of 150 was slightly less than expected, the amount raised was excellent, said Jo.

"We are staggered we have raised such a fantastic amount and are grateful to everyone who came to the event and showed their support.

"Overall the show was a great success with elegant and classy underwear from Romanza, a selection of 'in' fashions from halo and the beautiful wedding dresses from Louise Greenwood.

"Compared to our last show this one was much more sophisticated and the modelling flowed.