Kate Moss
Real Name: Katherine Ann Moss
Date of Birth: January 16, 1974
Place of birth: Addiscombe, Croydon, England
Profession: British super model and clothes designer
Kate Moss has appeared on some 300 magazine covers during her career as a model. She is known for her waifish figure and her high-profile relationships and the fact she likes to party hardy. Moss’s parents, Linda Rosina (shepherd) a boutique manager and Pete Edward Moss an airline clerk divorced when Kate was 13. She attended Ridgeway primary school then Riddlestown High School, where she excelled in sports, but wasn’t academically inclined.
Moss was discovered at JFK airport in New York after a trip to the Bahamas by Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management in 1988. Moss was shot in black and white for the British magazine ‘The Face,’ when she was 15 in a photo shoot called ‘The Third Summer of Love.’ She went on to become something of an anti-supermodel with her waif-like figure as compared to Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell who were known for their rather curvaceous figure.
The Sunday Times Rich List in 2007 estimated Moss’s net worth to be 45 million pounds and is ranked at Britain’s 99th richest woman. Forbes during the same year named Moss as second on the list of the Worlds 15 top-earning supermodels.
Moss was reminiscent of the super model ‘Twiggy’ during the 60’s because she ushered in the waif look which prompted much speculation on her health. In 1993 she was the star for Calvin Klein posing nude in ads for ‘Obsession’ perfume.
Moss was short for a runway model at 5’6”, but charmed the fashion industry and has worked for many elite fashion lines.
Moss is an international fashion icon and has garnered many awards for her style including the ‘Council of Fashion Designers of America’s’ fashion influence award and a place on the Vanity Fair’s international best dressed list.
Moss is credited for setting numerous trends. She has popularized the denim cutoff shorts, Ugg boots, ballet flats, Marc Jacobs’s ankle boots, skinny jeans and the waistcoat. She also brought high-waisted styles and waist-clinching belts back into popularity.
She also launched a collection of clothes across the UK that she designed exclusively for the Topshop chain in 2007. The collection of fifty designs included clothes, bags, shoes and belts with prices ranging from 12 pounds for a vest top to 150 pounds for a cropped leather jacket. Shoppers were limited to five items each to prevent the clothes appearing on eBay and were only allowed to try on eight garments in the shop. However, the day after the launch, hundreds of items showed up on e-Bay.
Moss is not without tremendous controversies. One of the first controversies was about her waif-like figure causing President Clinton to speak out against what he referred to as ‘Heroin chic trend in fashion models and there was a lot of speculation about her weight and abusing cocaine.
The British tabloids, the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror have constantly claimed that Moss habitually used cocaine. Moss has totally dismissed those claims as ridiculous and successfully sued the Sunday Mirror for claiming she had slipped into a coma after taking large amounts of cocaine in Spain in the 1990’s.
But on September 15, 2005, London’s Daily Mirror ran a front page and inside photos that appeared to show Moss snorting several lines of the nose candy at Babyshambles recording session. The Daily Mirror also reported that Moss snorted five lines in 40 minutes. Moss lost major modeling contracts with several international companies.
Kate Moss was linked romantically with former Libertines member Pete Doherty and was engaged to be married, but broke up in July 2007. She also has had long-term relationships with Mario Sorrenti and Johnny Depp. She has a daughter Lila Grace, born on September 29, 2002, with Dazed and Confused editor Jefferson Hack.
