Karimova, both a pop star and political player in the Central Asian state, has designed a fashion line to be launched at the World Watch and Jewellery show in Basel next week, her spokeswoman Dinara Dultayeva said Monday.

'Gulnara Karimova's jewelry collection 'Guli", specially designed for Chopard, will be presented next week and the money from this joint project will go to fund charity projects for children in Uzbekistan,' she said.

For the past several years the Harvard-educated Karimova, who also performs under the name 'GooGoosha", has been the public face of the Tashkent government abroad.

She is currently its permanent representative to the United Nations.

The western-leaning Karimova is said to hold significant business interests and political sway in Uzbekistan, a remote ex-Soviet state bordering increasingly-volatile Afghanistan. -- AFP