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 When Kate Moss shows up at gallery openings or plunks down in the
front row at a runway show, her picture is plastered across every
British tabloid the next day. Not that she's the subject of much
juicy gossip; the affair with Johnny Depp is long over, and her
runway days are currently on hold. But the tiny model, who was
discovered in an airport lounge at 14 and went on to launch a
thousand waif looks, continues to inspire designers, fashion
photographers and even artists. There isn't a stylish woman out
there—from Cameron Diaz to Paris Vogue editor Carine
Roitfeld—who wouldn't kill to raid Moss's closet.
It's not complicated: if Moss wears it, everyone else wants to
wear it too. For designers, there's really no better way to
improve their image or move merchandise. Last winter Moss showed
up at Manolo Blahnik's Design Museum show in London wearing a
shredded Lanvin dress and sent fashionistas clamoring for
anything by Alber Elbaz. At Mario Testino's exhibition at the
National Portrait Gallery, she wore a Balenciaga dress and a fur
stole, and—poof!—Tom Ford was designing fur stoles. Last summer
she turned up at a cosmetics party in a pair of Vivienne Westwood
platform pumps, and you can bet that platforms will be big this
fall.
Marc Jacobs, who looks to Moss for fashion ideas, calls her style
"extraordinary." John Galliano, whose Dior fall 2002 couture
collection was inspired by Moss, calls her the modern Marilyn
Monroe. W magazine dedicated its September issue to her,
enlisting more than a dozen photographers and artists to shoot
her. When Chuck Close showed Moss his unflattering daguerreotype
portrait, she didn't balk. "I've had enough pretty pictures made
of me," she said.
Like a star of the silent screen, Moss doesn't talk about her
career, the headlines or the rock-'n'-roll lifestyle. "She
creates an excitement about herself, through her style and
taste—somehow outside of fashion but always fashionable," says
Blahnik. Now that's a commodity. —By Camilla Morton
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