When Kate Moss disrupted the modelling scene in the early ’90s with her ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic, it was to the displeasure of other models.
The 50-year-old from Croydon, who became one of the most prominent models of her generation, initially received backlash from other top models, with fears that her meteoric rise to fame was hindering their opportunities.
Talking in a new Disney+ documentary, supermodel Tyra Banks explained: ‘We weren’t getting booked any more.
‘I remember being backstage of a fashion show in New York City and all the “supers” were like, “oh my god Calvin [Klein] didn’t book any of us, Calvin didn’t book any of us”, I remember the panic in all those supermodels’ faces’.
Famous models directed their anger at the new girl on the scene, with designer John Galliano also noting Kate being at the centre of a blame game in the new documentary called, In Vogue: The 90s.
Kate Moss’s rise to fame in the ’90s led to backlash from top models who saw her as a threat to their jobs, but others, including Linda, welcomed new models on the scene (pictured: Kate and Linda in 2004)
Kate said: ‘I am mentioning no names! There was definitely a bit of “she has come along what’s going to happen to us”, they knew.
‘My first season at the shows I was a bit intimidated, they just seemed giants to me and I was scrawny and quite shy. But then Christy [Turlington] and Naomi [Campbell] took me under their wing’.
While not mentioning Kate directly, Linda Evangelista weighed in on the conversation during a backstage clip from the ’90s.
She said: ‘You have a hockey team, you don’t retire the whole team all at once, you bring in rookies one at a time, I mean it’s really nice to see these new girls’.
Despite feelings from other models, Kate’s look was initially shunned from industry figures, who were uncertain whether she could compete with the likes of Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, known for their more for curvaceous, tall physiques.
Kate told a new Disney+ documentary: ‘Parents would come up to me and say, ‘My daughter’s anorexic’. It was awful.
‘I think because I was just skinny, and people weren’t used to seeing skinny. But if I’d been more buxom, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. It’s just that my body shape was different from the models before me.’
The look became popular after the then 19-year-old posed in lingerie for the June 1993 issue of Vogue.
In the 1990s, Kate introduced a new look into the modelling industry (pictured: Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista & Veronica Webb)
Pictured: Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista attend an Allure Magazine party in a Soho loft, New York, 1994
Top model Tyra Banks said Kate’s rise to fame led to other supermodels panicking about their jobs
Talking in the new Disney+ documentary, Kate explained that Naomi took her in (seen together in 1999 in London)
Describing the shoot with photographer Corinne Day, Ms Moss said: ‘I just felt really good. The whole shoot, I felt really comfortable, I loved creating the images. You know, it wasn’t glamorous. It was in my flat in London.’
‘Our bedroom was like a bedsit. That’s the kind of fashion I liked. It was much simpler.’
Despite Kate’s positive outlook after the shoot, it met criticism from spectators who claimed it perpetuated harmful ideals and anorexia.
Reflecting on the backlash to the original photo, which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in west London, fashion editor Catherine Kasterine told the documentary: ‘The public were not ready. They were absolutely appalled.
‘Immediately, the pictures were completely vilified and slammed. Perhaps we’d underestimated how that look had in our minds been quite normal.’
Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour said: ‘That look – very undernourished-looking model – made people uncomfortable.
‘Many of us at Vogue worried about heroin chic or anorexia, all the things that are associated with that look. It got to such a fever pitch. I remember physically being in the White House when the Clinton administration took the issue on.’
Following the release of the images, Kate said:’ I didn’t like some of the pictures…at 15 I wanted to be glamorous and like what they were showing in the magazines at the time’.
It was a shoot with Calvin Klein in 1992 that launched her career in America and started changing the looks of models around the globe.
A 1992 shoot with Calvin Klein alongside Mark Wahlberg launched Kate’s career across the pond
Vogue’s Anna Wintour said Calvin Klein ‘saw the power of Kate first’ (seen with Mark Wahlberg at the Calvin Klein fashion show)
‘I remember hearing Vanessa Paradis didn’t want to do it and so I thought, ok, well I’ll have it,’ Kate recalled.
She travelled to the meeting without much money to her name and came back on a Concorde with ‘$3mill in her pocket’, a contributor claimed in the Disney documentary.
Talking about the 1992 shoot with Calvin Klein, Anna Wintour said: ‘Calvin saw the power of Kate first’.
Tom Ford added on the topic of Kate’s rise to fame: ‘She altered our perception of what was beautiful, models did not look like Kate Moss before Kate Moss’.
But for Kate, who posed with Mark Wahlberg in the campaign, the reality of the shoot was difficult.
She said: ‘It was quite overwhelming, I was 18 and he was a big superstar rapper and I still felt like just a girl from Croydon.
‘They asked me to be topless and it was just a lot of people on set, a lot of men. I did feel vulnerable’
Speaking on Desert Island Discs with Lauren Laverne, Kate said Mark made the photoshoot ‘all about him’ and she also felt ‘objectified’ by the crew.
Asked if she had good memories of the shoot, Kate said: ‘Not very good memories. He was very macho and it was all about him. He had a big entourage. I was this model.
Lauren asked: ‘You felt objectified?’ to which Kate said: ‘Yeah completely and vulnerable and scared. I think they played on my vulnerability.’
She added: ‘I was quite young and innocent, Calvin loved that. I really didn’t feel well at all before the shoot, I couldn’t get out of bed and had severe anxiety.’
It was the look that made Kate Moss famous. Now the supermodel has revealed the abuse she faced for her ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic
The 50-year-old, who became the poster girl for the trend in the Nineties, said that people would approach her in the street and accuse her of promoting eating disorders (pictured with Naomi Campbell in 1993)
She told a new Disney+ documentary: ‘Parents would come up to me and say, ‘My daughter’s anorexic’. It was awful’ (pictured in 1995 walking in a Gucci show for Milan Fashion Week
Kate, who has since appeared on 30 Vogue covers, also infamously quipped that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ in 2009.
She has since tried to distance herself from the comments, which were used by several pro-anorexia websites, claiming it was just a ‘little jingle’ her housemate used to say.
The documentary In Vogue: The 90s, which will start streaming on Friday, is a star-studded look at the fashion industry during the decade.
It speaks to former Vogue editors including Edward Enninful and celebrities such as supermodel Naomi Campbell, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Sex And The City star Sarah Jessica Parker.
It also features designer Stella McCartney who revealed the advantage she had being the daughter of The Beatles star Paul.
Describing her graduation show from Central St Martin’s fashion school in London, Ms McCartney recalled: ‘All the other students were choosing their models, then they were getting their mates. I had mates, but my mates were the supermodels.
‘I was like, ‘Everyone’s gonna hate me if I do that…’ but life’s too short, and they were genuinely my mates. Those girls were the hottest girls on the planet. They were doing every show in every city, and they did a little college fashion show, for me. That was amazing.’
Ms Campbell, who took part in the show, said: ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever had a graduation like that. I’ve never seen any graduate from St Martin’s have their collection on the front cover of every single newspaper.’
Ms Moss, who also took part in the show, said: ‘We were just hanging out in Notting Hill, going to the same bars or restaurants or whatever, and I didn’t know she was a McCartney.
‘Then I saw her driving around in a Mercedes, and I was like, ‘She’s at college. How could she afford that?’ Then she told me – and then she asked me to do her graduate show.’
The fashion icon explained: ‘It’s just that my body shape was different from the models before me’ (pictured in June 2024)
The documentary In Vogue: The 90s, which will start streaming on Friday, is a star-studded look at the fashion industry during the decade
Ms McCartney, 52, said that the show sparked a backlash from her fellow students, adding: ‘As [I was] the child of such famous people, it became this whole drama. I was like, ‘Agghhh, get me out of here.’
She later took over at fashion house Chloe from superstar designer Karl Lagerfeld.
After learning she would be his successor, Ms McCartney claims he said: ‘I knew they’d take a big name to fill my boots, but I thought they’d use a big name in fashion, not music.’ She added: ‘Oooof, b****!’
The show also features former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham who revealed she was ‘completely obsessed’ with supermodel Linda Evangelista.
She added: ‘[Ms Evagelista] was the reason why I cut my hair, the reason why I dyed my hair lots of different colours. I was in New York, and I went to Garren, who was Linda’s hairdresser. When he cut all my hair off. I was channeling my inner Linda.’
Posh Spice, 50, also reveals how fashion brought her and her husband, David Beckham together.
‘When I first met David in 1997, he’d heard that I was the Spice Girl that liked the designer clothes,’ she said. ‘So after me going to a couple of football matches – I would say I was pursuing him, he’d probably say it was me stalking him – we arranged to go out on a date together.
‘He thought, ‘She’s the one who likes designer clothes,’ and so he actually went out and bought himself a full Prada look for our first date to impress me. Which it did.’
While Ms Moss was once famed for her heroin chic aesthetic, she now champions health and wellness.
The star has founded her own wellness brand called Cosmoss where she sells a variety of beauty products with quirky names like ‘Sacred Mist’ and ‘Golden Nectar’.
She has also taken up the practice of ‘moonbathing’ – lying under the light of the moon in order to absorb its lunar energy – and believes in the power of crystals.
It speaks to former Vogue editors including Edward Enninful and celebrities such as supermodel Naomi Campbell
Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour said: ‘That look – very undernourished-looking model – made people uncomfortable’
Speaking to The Sunday Times, she said: ‘I put all my crystals on a tray and put them outside in the garden,’ she said. ‘Just cleansing the crystal, charging the crystals.’
Previously describing her happy place as on the dancefloor, Ms Moss has since left London for the west Oxfordshire countryside where she practices transcendental meditation and goes wild swimming in a ‘secret place’ only the local villagers use.
The fashion icon also believes in the power of positive affirmations to improve one’s outlook with ’embrace the unknown’ and ‘trust the universe and it will lead the way’ being among her favourites.
Despite her new Gwyneth Paltrow-like lifestyle, Ms Moss still allows herself one vice.
‘I still smoke occasionally,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard that when you stop, you can really tell [by your skin]. But I haven’t stopped… yet.’
In the interview earlier this year, the model admitted she is in ‘denial’ about her upcoming 50th birthday because she does not feel her age.
‘I’m not turning 50,’ she said. ‘No. I’m not thinking about it. I do not feel 50.’
Briefly discussing her party days, Kate told how she now never stays out at a party past midnight, describing it as her ‘cut off point’.
Ms Moss’ beauty products, made from ‘potent, natural substances’, are split into three daily rituals which are said to balance the ‘body and soul with the natural environment and the circadian cycles’.
The website describes these rituals as enabling us to ‘adjust to the rhythm of nature, help us find inner peace and self-fulfilment, and open a door to balance, restoration and love’.
The full three rituals cost more than £400, while the popular Golden Nectar serum – which contains the ‘mythical’ tears of Chios, a plant resin produced on the Greek island – has a £105 price tag.
The dawn ritual, which fills the body with ‘positive energy’, costs a total of £287 and includes a £21 antioxidant ‘dawn tea’, a £52 cleanser and £95 anti-ageing face cream.
It is then finished with the £120 Sacred Mist eau de parfum which ‘envelopes you with its hypnotic yet grounding fragrance’ to ‘provide a sense of inner peace’.
Croydon-born Kate pictured on the Paris runway in 1992
While Ms Moss was once famed for her heroin chic aesthetic, she now champions health and wellness (pictured in May 2024)
Earlier this year, the Daily Mail revealed that Ms Moss had won a legal battle with a pharmaceutical firm over the name of her brand Cosmoss.
It means she has trademarked Cosmoss for ranges such as herbal preparations for medicinal purposes, plus food and mineral supplements in her latest venture.
‘Kate has huge ambitions for the Cosmoss brand,’ the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden was told at the time.
It is then finished with the £120 Sacred Mist eau de parfum which ‘envelopes you with its hypnotic yet grounding fragrance’ to ‘provide a sense of inner peace’.
Disney+ documentary In Vogue will showcase rare, never-before-seen archives from key figures in the industry and reveal the untold story of the decade’s most celebrated pop cultural moments and movements.
Other contributors will include designers Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul Gaultier, actress Claire Danes, models Amber Valetta and Tyson Beckford, director Baz Luhrmann and politician Hillary Clinton.
The new series was announced by The Walt Disney Company EMEA at the Edinburgh TV Festival last year.
Stream In Vogue: The 90s exclusively on Disney+ on Friday September 13.