Style Hollywood Actress - Kate Moss

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Kate Moss - Despite being only 5’7” on a good day, Kate Moss exploded into the ultra exclusive supermodel arena in 1992, landing a provocative Calvin Klein campaign which often paired her with Mark Wahlberg (at the time “Marky Mark” of the hip-hop group, Marky-Mark and the Funky Bunch) and ushering in a whole new image in the fashion industry known as the “waif look.” Defined by sunken eyes, jutting collar bones topping an emaciated frame, and melancholic facial expressions, Moss embodied a new era of advertising that played to the paradox of lost innocence, extreme vulnerability, and the allure of youthful sexuality. The term “heroine chic” arose from Moss’ popularized look and could be found in everything from the music videos of Guns N’ Roses to the pages of Vogue.

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Kate Moss - Kate Moss was born Katherine Moss Addiscombe in the London Borough of Croydon, England on Jan. 16, 1974. At age 14, she was discovered at JFK Airport by an employee of the British wing of the Storm Agency while she was returning from a Caribbean holiday with her mother. Moss struggled through school while doing small modeling jobs as a teen until she landed the cover of The Face’s 1990 “Summer of Love” issue, quickly followed by her notorious Calvin Klein debut.

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Kate Moss - Moss became a lightening rod of controversy for portraying what critics cited as an unhealthy image of beauty that promoted eating disorders and drug use. Although notoriously self-effacing and rarely one to give interviews, Moss and her personal life became equally as controversial as her photographs. From her famous lovers (such fiancé Johnny Depp), to the ubiquitous rumors of her drug-laden, rock-and-roll lifestyle, Moss remained the darling paramour of the fashion world throughout the 1990s, becoming a spokesmodel for such labels as Chanel, Banana Republic, Versace, Yves Saint-Laurent, Gucci, Narciso Rodriguez, Louis Vuitton, Celine, and Burberry. Her nude “Obsession” fragrance ads proved so popular that in 1995, she received the "Fashion Personality of the Year" award and later in 1996, won "Model of the Year" at the VH1 Fashion Awards. In 1997, Kate: The Kate Moss Book was published, a compilation of self-chosen photographs to represent her career in front of the camera.

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Kate Moss - The first time the wheels fell off for Moss was soon after her break-up with Johnny Depp in 1998, when she checked herself into London’s Priory clinic, citing “exhaustion.” Although her friends attributed her stay to depression via a failed engagement, insiders alleged the model was actually in rehab, which she later admitted, conceding she had been drinking and getting high before taking the catwalk for years, but denied using harder substances like cocaine.

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Kate Moss - As the millennium ended and the golden age of the supermodel faded back to more familiar “human and real” actresses representing brands, Moss was the lone vestige of her peers to flourish and gain steam. Her popularity boomed through her uncanny ability to create a seemingly infinite number of images for different brands, vanquishing her trademark waif with a new trademark of adaptability. At the age of 30 she was declared the sexiest woman of all time according to a poll conducted by men's magazine Arena to mark its 150th issue. In February 2005, a nude portrait of a pregnant Moss by Lucian Freud sold for £3.93 million.

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Kate Moss - Perhaps it was her earlier denial of hard-drug use that in part created the Kate Moss cocaine train wreck in the fall of 2005 – when her entire career careened off the tracks. On Sept. 5, just two weeks before her daughter Lila’s third birthday (from former boyfriend and “Dazed & Confused” editor Jefferson Hack), London’s Daily Mirror ran a front pager with Moss pictured on the cover clearly doing cocaine. The clandestine photographs showed the fashion icon sporting knee-high leather boots and disheveled hair while cutting a line of cocaine on a CD jewel box. The inset picture showed her snorting a line of the narcotic through a rolled, £5 note. The Mirror’s embossed headline read: “Cocaine Kate: Supermodel Kate Moss snorts line after line.” A videotape accompanied the photos of the debauched evening, which took place at a West London recording studio where her boyfriend Pete Doherty’s band Babyshambles was recording. Within hours, websites were rife with images of her bacchanal antics. All the publicity led London’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to launch an official inquiry, putting forth his reasoning behind the probe as to limit “the impact of this kind of behavior on impressionable young people.” So experienced with drugs was Moss, that Babyshambles’ band manager James Mullord claimed she showed him how to use a tampon cover to roll a joint.

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Kate Moss - Thus began an open season on Kate Moss-cum-drug addict and her free-for-all into shame, including the mass exodus of marquis contracts with Chanel, Burburry, and Swedish-owned H&M clothing (which was at the time premiering a line designed by Moss’ close friend Stella McCartney). Directly on the heels of her drug photos, Naomi Campbell’s personal assistant Rebecca White (who had known Moss since the late 90s), unleashed salacious stories of Moss seducing her, supermodel lesbian orgies instigated by Moss, and drug-fueled tirades. White gave interviews claiming, "She is naturally a very sexually open person. But, when she's doing cocaine, she becomes even more so and will fall into bed with whoever she chooses. Women as well as men."

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Kate Moss - Moss entered rehab soon thereafter, issuing the statement: "I take full responsibility for my actions. I also accept that there are various personal issues that I need to address and have started taking the difficult, yet necessary, steps to resolve them," Moss said. "I want to apologize to all of the people I have let down because of my behavior which has reflected badly on my family, friends, co-workers, business associates and others."

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Kate Moss - In true Moss style, just months after the cocaine scandal broke and despite rumors of her imminent arrest (which never happened since photographs of alleged drug-taking were not admissible evidence in British courts), she staged an amazing comeback, much of which she attributed to a recent conversion to Buddhism. Her annual earnings more than doubled after she left rehab and all her former fashion suitors soon lined up to woo her back into their camps, including Rimmel, Virgin Mobile, Dior, Roberto Cavalli, Longchamp, Stella McCartney, Bvlgari, and David Yurman. The spring of 2006 saw Nikon launch a campaign with Moss as the avatar of “hot,” wearing the same type of black, knee-high boots as she wore in the Daily Mirror photos.