Slinking down the catwalk in a seethrough dress as her hair tumbled around her shoulders, Kate Middleton captivated the entire room.
Prince William was transfixed and legend has it that he instantly fell in love with her as she took the fashion show by storm.
In fact they were already close friends and though Kate had left little to the imagination in that jaw-dropping dress, their romance would blossom slowly in the months ahead a long way from prying eyes.
And it was a long way from a royal fairy tale - because the future king wooed his future queen over takeaway pizza and cheap bottles of wine as they watched DVDs in the untidy student flat they shared with pals.
The previous year the couple had been thrown together when they moved into the same halls of residence, St Salvator's, at St Andrews University.
Nicknamed Sallies, the rambling Gothic dormitory was renowned as the most prestigious student residence, where rooms cost £2,000 per year.
The bashful prince, who had just turned 19, did not make it easy for other students to get to know him straight away.
He arrived after freshers' week, followed by an entourage of courtiers, bodyguards and photographers.
And while his contemporaries came to know him as down-toearth, he struggled to make new friends at first, preferring to surround himself with his old Eton pals and members of his trusted inner circle.
Kate, meanwhile, quickly earned a flattering nickname among the 180 Sallies students.
Helen McArdle, who was in the room next door to her, said: "The first thing any of us noticed was how attractive she was. And she was known as Beautiful Kate almost from day one." Far from the gangly schoolgirl who had been on the receiving end of playground bitchiness a few years before, Kate had grown in confidence even before she arrived in Scotland from her home in Bucklebury, Berks.
In her gap year as a deckhand on sailing boats in Southampton, she had proved that she could handle herself.
Her then boss, around-the-world yachtsman Sir Chay Blyth, said: "Most talk about her concerned her very tight shorts. She was an attractive girl who never allowed herself to be distracted by the comments."
Another boss, David Melvill, 48, said: "Sometimes we had to say, 'Kate, would you mind not standing by that hatch when you are serving because it's a bit revealing for anyone below deck'."
Others, though, played a joke on her because they thought she was a prude. A dozen male guests watched Kate demonstrate how to use a lifejacket and six condoms fell out as she unfolded it.
"She was horribly embarrassed and went bright red. She didn't find it funny," recalled a crewman. He added: "All the guys wanted to be with her. But I got the impression she was saving herself for the right man."
Somewhere between sitting near each other in history-of-art lectures and drinking in the student bars, Kate caught William's eye. But at first they were just friends.
Despite her newfound confidence, Kate has admitted she blushed when he first said hello.
She added: "It took quite a bit of time for us to get to know each other but we did become very close friends from quite early on."
Even though she had not yet captured his heart, fellow student Helen remembers how Kate stood out for having broken into William's tight-knit circle.
The gang chatted in dorms or socialised in upmarket bars. Helen said: "Kate once had to be carried back to her room by one of the Eton boys because she was drunk and couldn't walk. "On another occasion William fell into a bush outside Sallies and had to be retrieved by his bodyguards."
And even though he was tailed by royal protection officers and visited the Queen at weekends, William settled into a normal student life.
Kate too was lapping up the opportunities that the university had to offer, winning a place in the hockey team and c o -founding an allfemale society, The Lumsden Club.
Soon after arriving at St Andrews, Kate and William started relationships with other students. Kate went out with law student Rupert Finch for a few months and William dated Carly Massy-Birch for six weeks.
When his relationship with Carly broke down and he "wobbled" about whether or not student life was for him, he turned to Kate.
She encouraged him to stay but to switch subject to geography. By now, January 2002, their friendship was strong. "We spent more time with each other and had a giggle, lots of fun and realised we share the same interests," Wills said later.
So the pair were already close on March 27, 2002, when Kate was a model in the fashion show at the students' union after she picked out that revealing dress designed by Charlotte Todd.
Charlotte said: "I think she may have known what she was doing. And whether she did or not, it worked."
"It was a great night," pal Jules Knight said. "We were in a group of 20 or 30 people and we had a few tables and got quite drunk.
Will was there watching and Kate was up on the catwalk and looking amazing. She certainly turned quite a lot of heads. Suddenly this butterfly emerged from the chrysalis."
William told friends "Kate's hot" and their friendship slowly began to take a new turn as they approached their second year at St Andrews. When the new term began, the pair moved into a flat in one of the town's most exclusive streets with friends Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale. It was there, behind the bomb-proof doors and bullet-proof windows of 13a Hope Street, that Kate and William fell in love.
Like any other students they ate takeaways, watched films and had their friends round for dinner. They also visited each other's family homes. But their relationship was still a secret to the rest of the world.
That is until March, 2004, when they were pictured skiing in the Swiss Alps in the luxury resort of Klosters. This was Kate's first taste of the life that awaited her as the most photo-graphed woman in the world but the pair still managed to live the rest of their student days quietly.
They moved from Hope Street into a four-bedroom house outside St Andrews and they graduated in June 2005, both with a 2:1 degree. The couple then jetted off for a romantic holiday in Kenya before the "real world" beckoned. William had his life mapped out but Kate floundered when it came to deciding what to do. She moved to London and set up home in a £750,000 Chelsea flat her parents bought. While there she spent nights partying in posh clubs.
As Wills trained at Sandhurst, Kate flitted between working for her parents' mail-order firm and trying to set up her own projects.
By the time Wills passed out from the military academy in 2006, Kate had a "real job" - as an accessories buyer for high street chain Jigsaw.
Speculation of an engagement mounted and in 2007 Kate told close pals to expect an official announcement from Clarence House within weeks.
But William, who was stuck on an isolated Army base for five days a week, was increasingly feeling the pressure of their serious relationship.
And miles away from the boyfriend she had lived with at university, Kate, then 25, was hurt when she saw photos of William on nights out with other girls.
She told him she would not wait for ever for him to commit and the couple split during the Easter weekend in 2007.
Devastated Kate retreated to the sanctuary of her parents' home.
For now, her serene catwalk strut to the palace had lost its footing.