Typical tabloid hysteria. To me, the fresh-faced early-twenties Kate merely resembled an
ever so slightly more beautiful version of the young ladies I was going clubbing with in the mid-’90s. A party girl
perhaps, but certainly no junkie. Kate’s admitted it was a heavy time — her sybaritic relationship with Johnny Depp
in his Viper Room prime, and subsequent (supposedly) orgiastic doings with Jude Law, Sadie Frost and the so-called
Primrose Hill Set:“I was living fast… It was, ‘Sleep? Why? Why not go on? There’s too much
to do,’” she said. That doesn’t sound like the soporific existence of a heroin addict. Instead, it appears to give
credence to the rumours that Moss can hold her own with the rakish best of ’em, drinking like Burton, hoovering like
Belushi, romping like Beatty.
Naughtiness — it’s one of the qualities we’ve always loved about Kate. Even when
immaculately gussied up, a prim princess in couture, there’s always that glint in her eye, hinting at a predilection
for down’n’dirty misbehaviour. A splashy tabloid storm in 2005, exposing photos of Moss chopping out lines of “an
unidentified white powder” seemed to provide proof that there was (illicit) substance to these suspicions. Her
career took a hit for a while there, several clients dropping her from ad campaigns when enraged commentators
demanded to know what kind of role model Kate Moss made for British girls — failing to grasp that Kate Moss simply
is the archetypal British girl: Bit of a minx, fancies a shag, a fag, a toot, a tipple. British girls don’t
love her because they want to be like her; they love her because she islike them.
Still the cheeky crooked-toothed chick from dour London exburb Croydon, despite
inhabiting the fashion world’s glamorous heights for decades, her all-natural (if perhaps mood-enhanced) mien is
what made her such a gamechanger. To Calvin Klein, Kate“represented closing the door on the
excessiveness of the ’80s. So many women models would come to me where they’ve distorted their bodies by implants in
their breasts, changing their hips, changing their knees… I mean, you just cannot imagine what models were doing to
themselves,” the designer said. “I think something changed dramatically in the ’90s. And I was looking for someone
who could represent something that’s more natural.”
Today, it’s a delight to see Moss maintaining the effortlessly natural look that’s long
been her signature. Celebrating her 40thbirthday in 2014
with a jalapeno-hot, bunny-eared nude shoot for Playboy magazine, she looks as gorgeous as ever — without apparent
recourse to cosmetic surgery. (If she has gone under the knife or needle, she’s done so with a degree of subtlety
and restraint rarely witnessed in other areas of her life.)
While most supers seem untouchable goddesses, divorced from the real world, Kate keeps it
real, only appearing to be cast in bronze when she actually was — for artist Marc Quinn’s Sphinx and Siren
sculptures. The series was designed to comment on the unattainability of the beauty ideal. An apt choice, given that
Moss has always embodied perfection in its most wonderfully flawed form.
We’ve been through a lot, Kate Moss and me. Started out as skinny kids (unfortunately, I
haven’t held onto the snake-hipped waif figure), been through our ups and downs, marriage, parenthood, and now,
impending middle age. For Kate, the ad campaigns and Vogue bookings keep coming — I’m looking forward to growing old
with her, coming across that face gracing magazine covers for many years to come.
