 A BOND girl turned Anglican deacon is to be among a dozen church ministers taking part in a catwalk show. The Rev Shannon Ledbetter, who wore a £250,000 designer PVC dress in the 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, will take part in the Clergy on the Catwalk show in Manchester later this month. The event will feature colourful, contemporary clerical vestments from leading ecclesiastical designers, according to the organisers. Ms Ledbetter, 39, who is currently a curate at St Mark's Church in Knowsley, and a lecturer in theology and religious studies, has written a number of articles on religion and the arts. She once travelled the world as a model taking part in glossy magazine shoots. She said: "In contemporary art, most of the century has been spent taking the glamour and idealisation away from the body. "Ironically, the only place Western culture appears to idealise the human form today is on the catwalk. "The supermodel has become the form we place on a pedestal draped with exotic fabrics and captured on film. "I hope Clergy on the Catwalk will direct attention away from the superficial to the spiritual." Clergy on the Catwalk will take place on the opening day of the 8th Northern Christian Resources Exhibition - dubbed the "ideal church show" - at GMex, Manchester from September 24 to September 26. "We are keen to recruit a few more 'ordinary' clergy for the catwalk," said Steve Goddard, one of the exhibition organisers, based in St Helens. "They don't have to have Shannon's modelling background - and can be all ages, shapes and sizes." More than 5,000 people are expected to visit Northern CRE, where everything from computers to communion wine, pilgrimages to pews will be on display. While hundreds of clergy visit the show, four out of five visitors will be local church members. The three-day event will be opened by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones. | 
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