Kate Moss

Kate Moss

“The Croydon girl spotted at JFK at 14, whose unposed, skinny look in the 1990s replaced the glossy supermodel, and who is still the model other people dress like.”

Kate Moss is an English model, born in Croydon, south London, on 16 January 1974. At 14 she was spotted in an airport by the head of a London agency, and within five years she was the face that overturned the 1980s idea of the tall, glossy supermodel. Slight, unposed and a little untidy, she stood for a younger, cooler, more honest kind of beauty. She has stayed at the top for more than three decades, and British Vogue has put her on more covers than anyone: its editor counted the 40th in May 2019.

Her break came from the London style magazines. In July 1990 the photographer Corinne Day, working with the stylist Melanie Ward, shot her for The Face in a story called 'The Third Summer of Love'. Day also gave her her first British Vogue cover in March 1993. Between those two dates Moss worked for Calvin Klein: the 1992 jeans and underwear ads with the rapper Mark Wahlberg, then the 1993 Obsession pictures taken by her boyfriend Mario Sorrenti, followed by the 1994 CK One campaign. In September 1993 a sheer metal-coloured slip dress at a London party made her a tabloid star. Marc Jacobs's 1992 grunge collection for Perry Ellis was an early runway moment.

The same thin, tired look was soon blamed for 'heroin chic'. The label stuck to her, although she says she never took heroin and the phrase was not hers; President Bill Clinton attacked fashion's 'glorification of heroin' on 21 May 1997. In the 2000s she became London's most photographed woman: the face of Rimmel from 2001, the sitter for Lucian Freud's naked portrait in 2002, the muddy-boots look at Glastonbury in 2005. In September 2005 the Daily Mirror printed pictures said to show her taking cocaine. H&M, Burberry and Chanel dropped her; police and prosecutors looked at the case; and on 15 June 2006 the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not charge her. By then her friend Alexander McQueen had shown her as a ghostly projection at the end of his Paris show on 3 March 2006, and her contracts came back within the year.

The work that followed made her a name beyond modelling. Marc Quinn's yoga-posed sculpture Sphinx (2006) and his gold Siren at the British Museum (2008) turned her into an artwork. Her Topshop collection, launched on 30 April 2007, made her a designer. She walked in the London Olympics closing ceremony in 2012, became a contributing fashion editor at British Vogue in 2013, opened the Kate Moss Agency in 2016, and in 2022 became Diet Coke's creative director and launched the wellness brand Cosmoss. In 2025 a film about the Freud sittings, Moss & Freud, had its world premiere in London. In 2026 she returned to the Met Gala, and her agency marked its tenth year.

Several tales about her are wrong or loose. She was discovered at New York's JFK airport, not at Heathrow; the sources disagree on whether the year was 1987 or 1988. 'Heroin chic' was not coined by Moss, and its true origin is disputed. The 1992 Calvin Klein pictures with Wahlberg were for jeans and underwear, not the Obsession scent, which was a separate 1993 campaign. And counts of her Vogue covers vary with the year of the source: the Guardian said 34 in 2014, Vogue said 40 in 2019. This entry gives each date with its source and says where the sources differ.

What happened

  1. 1974

  2. Katherine Ann Moss is born in Croydon, south London, the daughter of a barmaid and a travel agent (the Guardian) or an airline employee (Wikipedia).

    Croydon, south London: born here on 16 January 1974 and grew up here
  3. 1988

  4. Aged 14, on the way home from a holiday in the Bahamas, she is spotted at JFK airport in New York by Sarah Doukas, founder of the Storm agency in London. Vogue dates the discovery 1987; most other sources 1988.

    John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York: where Sarah Doukas of Storm spotted her aged 14, in 1988 (Vogue says 1987)

  5. Doukas sends her to the photographer David Ross for her first photographs, later shown in a London exhibition.

  6. 1990

  7. Corinne Day photographs her, topless and laughing on a beach, for The Face, in a story called 'The Third Summer of Love' styled by Melanie Ward; she is 16. The picture, in the V&A, marks a turn in fashion photography.

    Soho, London: Corinne Day's Brewer Street flat in 1990, the castings, and the Kate Moss Agency's top floor today
  8. 1992

  9. Herb Ritts photographs her with the rapper Mark 'Marky Mark' Wahlberg for Calvin Klein jeans and underwear; the pictures cause a storm and are her first major contract. The Obsession scent campaign is a separate one, in 1993.

  10. She walks in Marc Jacobs's grunge collection for Perry Ellis, which costs him his job and begins a friendship: Jacobs later called it the start of one of his most cherished friendships.

  11. 1993

  12. Mario Sorrenti, her boyfriend, photographs her nude on a trip to the British Virgin Islands for Calvin Klein's Obsession campaign: 'he was obsessed with her', said Klein.

  13. Her first British Vogue cover, shot by Corinne Day: she is 19, in a pale pink and ice-blue tweed bustier by Chanel.

  14. 'Under-exposure': Day's pictures of her in underwear in a London flat, in British Vogue, provoke a press outcry over 'child waifs'; Day says 'we were poking fun at fashion'.

  15. At an Elite Model Agency party in London she wears a sheer metallic Liza Bruce slip dress with nothing underneath but a thong; she is photographed in it by the press for the first time. She tells Vogue she did not know it was see-through.

  16. 1994

    She appears in Calvin Klein's CK One campaign, shot by Steven Meisel, with a cast of androgynous young people; CK One, a unisex scent, launches in 1994.

  17. 1997

  18. The photographer Davide Sorrenti, Mario's brother, dies at 20 (Gale says 21). The phrase 'heroin chic' is, per the Guardian, spoken at his wake by the editor Ingrid Sischy; the sources disagree on who first used it.

  19. President Clinton tells the US Conference of Mayors that fashion photographs have made 'heroin addiction seem glamorous and sexy and cool': 'the glorification of heroin is not creative, it's destructive.' Moss and the Calvin Klein look are blamed; she says she never took heroin.

  20. 2001

    She signs a global contract with Rimmel; her first campaign for the London make-up house, shot by Terry Richardson, appears the same year.

    Croydon, south London: born here on 16 January 1974 and grew up here
  21. 2002

  22. Rimmel's advertising is rebuilt around 'beauty made in London' with Moss at its head; its London agency says profits rose within six months.

  23. Lucian Freud paints her naked and pregnant over about nine months; her daughter Lila Grace is born in 2002, with the publisher Jefferson Hack.

  24. 2005

  25. Freud's 'Naked Portrait 2002' sells at Christie's in London for 3.9 million pounds to an anonymous telephone bidder.

  26. At Glastonbury in the mud, she wears a waistcoat, tweed shorts, a studded belt and Hunter wellington boots; the look starts a festival fashion.

  27. The Daily Mirror prints pictures from a video said to show her taking cocaine at a recording studio in west London while with Pete Doherty; the paper's first pages appear on 14 or 15 September.

  28. H&M cancels her place in its autumn campaign for the Stella McCartney collection, reported as worth 4 million pounds a year.

  29. Burberry and Chanel part from her; Chanel says its non-renewal, due that October, is unrelated. Moss issues an apology without admitting drug use; Rimmel keeps her.

  30. 2006

  31. She returns to London and is questioned under caution by Metropolitan Police detectives for about 80 minutes; she is not charged and leaves two days later.

  32. British Vogue puts her on its March cover, shot by Nick Knight, her 21st: the first since the Mirror story.

  33. At the end of Alexander McQueen's 'The Widows of Culloden' at Paris-Bercy, a life-size film of Moss in a billowing white chiffon gown appears to float in a glass pyramid: a Pepper's Ghost illusion made with Baillie Walsh and Glassworks, a gesture of support from McQueen.

    Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy (now the Accor Arena): the Alexander McQueen show of 3 March 2006 with her hologram finale

  34. Marc Quinn unveils 'Sphinx', a life-size painted bronze of Moss in a yoga pose; it is shown that year at the Groninger Museum.

  35. The Crown Prosecution Service announces that she will not be charged: the video clearly shows drug use, but the drug cannot be identified. Some sources say 16 June.

  36. She is named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, in a year she signs contracts with Rimmel, Calvin Klein, Burberry and others.

  37. 2007

  38. She appears in the window of the Topshop flagship at Oxford Circus to launch her first collection; more than a thousand queue, some for hours; the 50 designs go on sale in 225 stores on 1 May.

    Oxford Circus, London: the Topshop flagship where she launched her collection on 30 April 2007
  39. 2008

  40. Quinn's gold 'Siren', 18-carat and 50 kilograms, is shown at the British Museum in 'Statuephilia', which opens on 4 October (press unveiling 2 October).

  41. 2010

    Her last collection for Topshop is released; she designs a handbag range for Longchamp the same year.

  42. 2011

  43. She marries the Kills guitarist Jamie Hince at St Peter's Church, Southrop, in a dress by John Galliano.

  44. Rimmel marks ten years with Moss at Claridge's with her own lipstick range; the advertisement is shot at a car park in her home town of Croydon.

    Croydon, south London: born here on 16 January 1974 and grew up here
  45. 2012

  46. She walks the catwalk with Naomi Campbell, Lily Cole, Stella Tennant and others at the London Olympics closing ceremony.

  47. 2013

  48. She receives the Special Recognition award at the British Fashion Awards for 25 years in fashion, and joins British Vogue as contributing fashion editor.

  49. 2014

  50. Her second collection for Topshop, a one-off, is launched.

    Oxford Circus, London: the Topshop flagship where she launched her collection on 30 April 2007

  51. At 40, she sits in the front row at the Burberry Prorsum spring/summer 2015 show in London.

  52. 2016

  53. She launches the Kate Moss Agency in London, 'to create stars'; Lila is later among its clients.

  54. 2019

  55. British Vogue's May issue has three Kate Moss covers, her 40th month on the cover, with Moss the most prolific cover star in its history.

  56. 2022

  57. She gives a few minutes of video-link evidence from England in Johnny Depp's libel trial in Virginia, saying he never pushed her down stairs.

  58. Diet Coke names her its creative director, the first for ten years, in the brand's 40th year.

  59. She launches Cosmoss, a skincare and wellness brand of six products, developed in the Cotswolds during lockdown.

  60. 2024

  61. She turns 50, with more than 40 British Vogue covers to her name.

  62. 2025

  63. 'Moss & Freud', a film about the sittings for Freud's portrait in 2002, with Ellie Bamber as Moss and Derek Jacobi as Freud, has its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival; Moss is among its executive producers.

  64. 2026

  65. She returns to the Met Gala for the first time since 2023, in a sheer black Saint Laurent gown by her friend Anthony Vaccarello.

  66. She is on the September cover of Vogue Brasil, shot by Zee Nunes in Trancoso, in four versions.

  67. Perfect magazine marks ten years of the Kate Moss Agency with an interview from its Soho top floor: 'ten years! It feels more like two.'

    Soho, London: Corinne Day's Brewer Street flat in 1990, the castings, and the Kate Moss Agency's top floor today