Kate Moss isn’t old and boring – she’s still a mischievous IT girl in a nasty industry that hated her for not being posh
KATE MOSS was always going to go the distance. She was always going to age well, she was always going to end up as a genuine British icon.
Because there is simply no one like her. She will always be a super glamour gal, and regardless of what her critics have said, she will also always have timeless appeal.
Of course, this week much has been made of the fact that her daughter Lila has intimated that Kate might be “past it”, but you can tell by the playful way she says it that she actually doesn’t think that at all.
Lila, like the rest of us, knows that her mum is still an “it” girl, and will no doubt be one for ever.
Because once you’ve been the world’s most famous cover girl, the world doesn’t forget.
And while Britain has produced more than its fair share of genuinely iconic cover girls — including Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn — there has never been anyone like Kate. And I doubt there ever will.
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Criticised for being working class
Not that she’s always had it her own way, of course.
To understand the extraordinary way Kate Moss has affected our lives since being discovered in JFK airport in 1988 at the tender age of 14, you have to go back to the 1960s.
In the Swinging Sixties, the biggest model of the Carnaby Street years was Twiggy.
If we think back to those times we conjure up images of Michael Caine, The Beatles and mini-skirted dolly birds parading up and down the King’s Road, seemingly without a care in the world.
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And short-haired Twiggy, the androgynous, goofy, working-class girl, took the world by storm a generation or two before Kate Moss.
But it’s easy to forget the criticism she received at the time. Not for having short hair, not for looking different from all the society models who had gone before her.
No, she was criticised for being working class. For not being posh.
It seems crazy in this day and age to think that a fashion icon — especially one who brought so much international attention to London and the UK at the time — could have been looked down on in such a way, but it was the case.
Because Twiggy talked with a Cockney accent, she was treated like a freak.
Sure, it was OK for the likes of Michael Caine, Terence Stamp and David Bailey to run around town behaving like Jack the lads.
But not Twiggy.
Because she, like Kate Moss, suffered at the hands of a deeply misogynist and classist industry. You probably don’t need me to tell you that the fashion industry can be a very cruel place sometimes.
Kate Moss, unbelievably, experienced similar sneering comments when she broke through in the early 1990s, as the face of what became known as “heroin chic”.
Working with photographers such as Corinne Day and David Sims in magazines like i-D and The Face, she became the face of a new generation.
But in private the fashion industry wasn’t always as enthusiastic as it appeared.
She was from Croydon and not Chelsea, so there were those who thought she wouldn’t have what it takes to be successful in a world obsessed with status as much as looks.
But Kate proved everybody wrong, being possessed of not just an extraordinary beauty, but also the kind of universal appeal that works for everyone.
Men like her, women want to be her and grannies want to look after her.
She has always had a look that everyone is attracted to. Which is why we all like her so much.
Kate has, over the years, become something of a national treasure.
This is even more remarkable if you consider she almost never talks to the Press.
One of the smartest decisions she ever made was to keep herself to herself, and let her work to do the talking for her.
Which, after all, is why she is so successful, and why people — both men and women, children and oldies — still love her so.
And because the camera loves her most of all, we never forget it.
In person she is a whip-smart and playful companion. Fun at parties, engaging at dinners, and always prepared to sing for her supper.
The first time I properly spent any time with her — at an Elton John birthday dinner back in the mists of time — she was completely engaging and full of stories.
She wasn’t a diva and didn’t demand that the room take notice of her. She had decorum.
She was flirty (not with me, I hasten to add), chatty and full of vim and vigour.
Because that night, like every other night, she didn’t need to shout about how great she was.
When you’re on the cover of every fashion magazine — and I can’t think of a decent fashion magazine that she hasn’t been on the cover of in the past 30 years — you don’t need to show off.
Your face is out there doing it for you. Of course, I’ve seen her behave badly.
I could write a book about celebrities behaving badly, not that I ever would — but she’s never been a diva like so many other high-profile models (mentioning no names).
She made normal girls feel and look special
Whenever I’ve seen her lose her rag — not often, to be fair — it’s been because she’s frustrated by the inadequacies of those around her.
Not because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention. That’s not her style.
She’s the girl who appears on the cover of Playboy, but who also mucks about on Comic Relief.
The girl who posed for British painter Lucian Freud as well as Agent Provocateur.
The girl who got undressed for Calvin Klein, and who had dinner with David Bowie.
The daughter of a barmaid who made it cool to go to Glastonbury, and the girl who has had more magazine covers than most models have had hot dinners.
Because she was a special girl who seemed normal, she made normal girls feel, and look, special.
I have just finished writing a book about the influence of the 1990s, and I asked various people in the fashion and publishing industries how important she was to the decade, and to the business in general.
Whenever you ask a question like this you assume there’s going to be the occasional difference of opinion.
But everyone from the photographer David Bailey to former Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman to the British Fashion Council’s Caroline Rush only had enthusiastic things to say about Kate. Because they like her. We all do.
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Which is why she is a national treasure, and why she will never be old hat. Or past it. Or over the hill.
As her daughter Lila knows. Like we all know. There will only ever be one Kate Moss.
