Some of the world’s biggest stars came out at the Cannes Film Festival to prove that diamonds are still a girl’s best friend.

Heading the glittering occasion, entitled A Diamond Is Forever: Cinema Against AIDS and benefiting the American Foundation For AIDS Research (amfAR), was the charity’s Founding National Chairman Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Appropriately attired in a dress encrusted with rhinestones and adorned with diamond jewellery, Dame Elizabeth finished her outfit off with the 33-carat diamond ring which was a present from her former husband Richard Burton.

“Coming back and raising money for AIDS gives me a great sense of joy,” Dame Elizabeth told the guests, who included supermodel Naomi Campbell, film director Terry Gilliam and the co-chairs of the event, Elizabeth Hurley and Julia Ormond.

The centrepiece of the Cinema Against AIDS dinner was a glittering display of 12 one-of-a-kind diamond necklaces, valued at $25 million and totalling 2,000 carats. Called the A Diamond is Forever Collection and described as “the most magnificent collection of diamonds ever assembled”, the necklaces will be auctioned at a later date to benefit amfAR.

For all the pictures from Dame Elizabeth Taylor’s fundraising celebrity dinner in Cannes, the new issue of HELLO! is on sale now.