The secret to Kate Moss's style
The looks we rarely talk about that changed everything
Kate Moss turned 50 this week. And because she’s Kate Moss, she did so in a see-through body suit, a black cape and a party at The Ritz. Of course this is what we have come to expect from a woman who has been influencing what other women wear for over 35 years.
As a 16-year old she showed the world how to style a suit. As a twenty-something she demonstrated every which way to wear a slip dress. Whilst in her thirties and forties, she made blazers with ballgowns a thing, brought back the ‘shag’ coat and somehow managed to convince us all that UGG boots for outdoors was entirely acceptable. My point is everything she wears feels fresh, unexpected and most crucially all, within everyone’s grasp.
Ballet flats with grey skinny jeans? I can do that, we all thought. (And indeed millions of us did, for well over a decade.) Knee high boots over jeans and leggings? Yup, totally doable for the majority of us too. How about a maxi skirt with trainers? A ditsy tea dress with black leather flats? Or a transparent slip dress with a pair of knickers on underneath? ( Okay, okay….doable only for the under 25s). But you get the idea. She throws it together, and we follow like Pavlov’s dogs.
How does she do it? It’s hard to say. But I’ve often thought being an underdog in a top dog world might have something to do with it. After all, Kate Moss has existed in a world of perfection since she was 14 years old. Her crowd has always been 6ft mannequins with cantilevered breasts and legs like the Burj Khalifa -the Nadja Auermanns, the Cindy Crawfords, the Linda Evangelistas. Any item of clothing looks good on someone build by the Gods. But when you’re not? You have to work that bit harder.
You see Kate Moss was never perfect. She was flat-chested, knock-kneed and a good five inches shorter than everyone else. Just like the rest of us, trousers were always too long (except the skinny jean, naturally) and dresses highlighted her bow-legs. She didn’t fill out a corset the way Claudia Schiffer could. Neither could she bounce along in hot pants like Naomi Campbell. So she set about doing her own thing. She wore designers clothing, sure, but she always dressed herself. And in doing so, she helped dress the rest of us.
I’ve spent days researching this feature and let me tell you, there is not one bad outfit to be found. Not the Mukluk boots. Not the giant leopard print trousers. Not even the 2007 Glastonbury outfit that amounted to little more than a pair of gardening wellies and a nappy. It all just somehow works.
But whilst certain ‘Moss looks’ have gone on to become style tropes for the modern woman - gladiator sandals and the cut-off denim skirt say, there are other far more interesting style signatures that get far less air time. So I thought I’d celebrate them here. These are the looks that are as workable as they are original and exciting, and frankly, ones I have been using myself for years.
As always please join me in the chat below to tell me about your Kate Moss style moments and memories. I’ll share the time I dragged my husband round a market in Lapland in order to find a pair of Mukluk boots, if you’ll share yours…
Happy Sunday all!
Farrah