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Chanel & Burberry part ways with Kate Moss
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The Times
If Cocaine Kate is a role model, please excuse my snorts of derision
Notebook by Mick Hume
THE CARRY-ON about Kate Moss, the cocaine-taking model, has at least helped to clear up the confusion about official attitudes to Class A drugs. We now know that it is no longer considered illegal or immoral to take cocaine at parties, nightclubs, fashion shows or just about anywhere else. However, it is deemed a heinous crime to be seen taking cocaine on the front page of a newspaper. After years of being glamorised and rewarded for pursuing her “party lifestyle”, it must have come as a shock to Ms Moss to realise that she is suddenly said to have done something wrong. Since the papers got hold of grainy photos of her apparently snorting coke, followed by further ripsnorting revelations about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, she has transmogrified overnight from the “coolest chick on the planet” to a hot potato at the centre of a drug-fuelled moral panic.
Not only has Ms Moss been dropped by fashion labels that would have us believe her unwholesome behaviour is news to them, but a police investigation has been personally ordered by Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He announced that while the Met’s usual policy was to pursue dealers rather than users, this was “adaptable to the impact of events”. In other words, our PR-conscious police chief will change the rules in line with the news headlines. Welcome to Celebrity Drug Bust, the new reality TV show.
Commissioner Blair justified singling out Ms Moss for a crackdown not because of her private life but because of her public image: “We have to look at the impact of this kind of behaviour on impressionable young people and if there is evidence, something should be done about it.” When nobody seems sure where to draw the line on an issue like drugs, the one thing everybody can agree on is the need to protect the kiddies. The message from all sides is that Ms Moss must act as some sort of a role model.
This is the ridiculous end of the government-led crusade to try to turn every celebrity into a symbol of sobriety and good sense for our children. According to Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, “it is important to remember that in public life you are a role model, for better or worse”. It is bad enough when they try to force infantile footballers into this mould. But anybody seriously suggesting that we might look up to Ms Moss in life as well as on the catwalk must be completely out of it.
I do not much care what models do with their inflated earnings. However, we could all do with less of the phoney outrage. If the crusaders are serious about outing cocaine users, they will have to close down the fashion and music industries for starters; it has even been suggested that some in the media and the Met might occasionally stop snorting with indignation long enough to snort something else. Most of all, let us kick the dodgy habit of expecting the assorted airheads of Planet Celebrity to teach “impressionable young people” how to behave. If we really have to look to a 31-year-old who dresses and acts like an adolescent to set an example to our children we are as lost as “Cocaine Kate”. Telling a fashion model to act as a role model is no more realistic than asking a clothes horse to run like a racehorse.
From the times UK website
If Cocaine Kate is a role model, please excuse my snorts of derision
Notebook by Mick Hume
Not only has Ms Moss been dropped by fashion labels that would have us believe her unwholesome behaviour is news to them, but a police investigation has been personally ordered by Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He announced that while the Met’s usual policy was to pursue dealers rather than users, this was “adaptable to the impact of events”. In other words, our PR-conscious police chief will change the rules in line with the news headlines. Welcome to Celebrity Drug Bust, the new reality TV show.
Commissioner Blair justified singling out Ms Moss for a crackdown not because of her private life but because of her public image: “We have to look at the impact of this kind of behaviour on impressionable young people and if there is evidence, something should be done about it.” When nobody seems sure where to draw the line on an issue like drugs, the one thing everybody can agree on is the need to protect the kiddies. The message from all sides is that Ms Moss must act as some sort of a role model.
This is the ridiculous end of the government-led crusade to try to turn every celebrity into a symbol of sobriety and good sense for our children. According to Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, “it is important to remember that in public life you are a role model, for better or worse”. It is bad enough when they try to force infantile footballers into this mould. But anybody seriously suggesting that we might look up to Ms Moss in life as well as on the catwalk must be completely out of it.
I do not much care what models do with their inflated earnings. However, we could all do with less of the phoney outrage. If the crusaders are serious about outing cocaine users, they will have to close down the fashion and music industries for starters; it has even been suggested that some in the media and the Met might occasionally stop snorting with indignation long enough to snort something else. Most of all, let us kick the dodgy habit of expecting the assorted airheads of Planet Celebrity to teach “impressionable young people” how to behave. If we really have to look to a 31-year-old who dresses and acts like an adolescent to set an example to our children we are as lost as “Cocaine Kate”. Telling a fashion model to act as a role model is no more realistic than asking a clothes horse to run like a racehorse.
From the times UK website
Kate Moss a role model? I don't think so
By Tom Utley
(Filed: 23/09/2005)
I'm afraid I wouldn't last long as a reporter on the Daily Mirror. If I had spotted Kate Moss taking what looked like cocaine at a party, it simply wouldn't have occurred to me that I was witnessing front-page news in the making - still less that I should tell my editor to hold pages one to five every day until further notice. "Supermodel scoffs doughnuts" - now that really would be a story. But "Supermodel snorts cocaine" ranks somewhere between "Dog bites man" and "Gardener mows lawn" on the Utley Scale of Earth-Shattering Revelations.
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, takes a more serious view of the Daily Mirror's scoop. He announced on Wednesday that he, personally, had been instrumental in launching an investigation into the paper's allegations. "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behaviour on impressionable young people and, if there is evidence, something should be done about it," he said.
You might think Britain's number one police officer would have something better to do with his time, in these days of international terrorism, than investigating a 31-year-old working mother for what must surely be one of the most common and least serious crimes on his patch.
I am sure that if Sir Ian put his mind to it, he could round up several dozen coke-snorting celebrities, any Saturday night of the year, simply by raiding a few parties in the trendier and more expensive parts of town. But I must not put ideas into his head.
You might also think that Moss had already paid a vastly higher price for her misbehaviour than the average London mugger ever has to pay for his. Since the Mirror's story appeared, she has lost at least three modelling contracts - worth, some say, more than £1 million. But Sir Ian now seems determined that she should also be slapped on the wrist by a magistrate.
I am not even sure if it is true that Moss is a role model for "impressionable young people". Certainly, a great many fashion designers are convinced that women look at what she is wearing and think: "If I bought that frock, then I, too, could look like Kate Moss." But does anybody actually believe, even on a subconscious level, "If only I took cocaine and hung out with junkies, then I, too, could be slim and beautiful and earn millions of pounds every year"?
I reckon Moss is no more a role model for the impressionable young than Sir Ian is a role model for middle-aged men. After all, very few of us go around in expensive, showy-off half-moon spectacles, demanding the power to administer summary "justice" to our fellow citizens, just because the Met Commissioner is so often on the telly.
It is not as if Moss actively sought to have her alleged drug-taking splashed all over the papers, day after day. She wasn't saying: "Look at me! I take coke! You should try some yourself!" Indeed, she has made much more effort than most famous people to keep herself to herself, and we have every reason to believe she would very much have preferred it if the Mirror had decided against telling impressionable young people that she took drugs.
I don't understand how prosecuting Moss will help. As far as I can see, it will serve only to keep the story in the news, and so to remind the impressionable young that their "role model" is believed to have a taste for cocaine. By announcing that his purpose in launching an investigation was to make an example of the woman, Sir Ian is sending out the message: "Don't worry. We are only prosecuting her because she is famous. If you're not famous, you can take as much coke as you like and get away with it."
This might be unfair, but I get the impression that Sir Ian is much more of a publicity-seeker than Moss. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he chose to intervene in her case, knowing that invoking her name would guarantee him wide coverage in the media. A shyer man would surely have thought twice about suggesting publicly that the police should be allowed to bypass the courts, imposing anti-social behaviour orders and confiscating people's cars, so soon after his men had shot and killed an innocent Brazilian electrician, in the mistaken belief that he was an Islamic terrorist. Sir Ian's own role in that tragedy - allowing the falsehood to get about, uncorrected, that the victim's dress and behaviour had attracted suspicion, and that he had jumped over the barriers at Stockwell Underground station - hardly inspires confidence in the wisdom or honesty of the police. If the top man behaves in this way, why should we trust his underlings to show better judgment when they take it into their heads to confiscate our cars?
What is clear is that the police cannot be bothered or trusted properly to enforce the law as it applies to narcotics. The whole issue is a complete muddle, for which legislators and the police must share the blame. How utterly crass it was of my own local force in Lambeth to decide not to prosecute people for smoking cannabis, but to pursue the drug's suppliers without mercy. There you have a perfect recipe for crime - boosting the rewards of drug-dealing by simultaneously stimulating demand and suppressing supply.
I don't pretend to have the answer. The libertarian in me says that almost all the harm done to innocent third parties by the drugs trade springs from its illegality - the muggings and burglaries in Lambeth by desperados seeking money for their next fix, and the utter misery inflicted on the people of Jamaica by the murderers who control the trade. The obvious answer, therefore, is to legalise the sale and use of narcotics. But then the father in me answers that almost nothing would distress me more than that one of my sons should become hooked on drugs. Keep them illegal, says Father Tom.
These are agonisingly complicated problems, and it is not for bears of little brain, like Sir Ian Blair, to make up the answers. Instead, the commissioner should get on with his job of tackling crime in the capital, even-handedly and according to the laws laid down by Parliament. Yesterday, it emerged that the average London policeman solves 11.49 crimes in the course of an entire year, which works out at less than one crime a month. Perhaps Sir Ian thinks that when he has prosecuted Kate Moss, with the help of the Daily Mirror, that will be his work done for the month.
Most of us Londoners think differently.
From telegraph.co.uk
By Tom Utley
(Filed: 23/09/2005)
I'm afraid I wouldn't last long as a reporter on the Daily Mirror. If I had spotted Kate Moss taking what looked like cocaine at a party, it simply wouldn't have occurred to me that I was witnessing front-page news in the making - still less that I should tell my editor to hold pages one to five every day until further notice. "Supermodel scoffs doughnuts" - now that really would be a story. But "Supermodel snorts cocaine" ranks somewhere between "Dog bites man" and "Gardener mows lawn" on the Utley Scale of Earth-Shattering Revelations.
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, takes a more serious view of the Daily Mirror's scoop. He announced on Wednesday that he, personally, had been instrumental in launching an investigation into the paper's allegations. "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behaviour on impressionable young people and, if there is evidence, something should be done about it," he said.
You might think Britain's number one police officer would have something better to do with his time, in these days of international terrorism, than investigating a 31-year-old working mother for what must surely be one of the most common and least serious crimes on his patch.
I am sure that if Sir Ian put his mind to it, he could round up several dozen coke-snorting celebrities, any Saturday night of the year, simply by raiding a few parties in the trendier and more expensive parts of town. But I must not put ideas into his head.
You might also think that Moss had already paid a vastly higher price for her misbehaviour than the average London mugger ever has to pay for his. Since the Mirror's story appeared, she has lost at least three modelling contracts - worth, some say, more than £1 million. But Sir Ian now seems determined that she should also be slapped on the wrist by a magistrate.
I am not even sure if it is true that Moss is a role model for "impressionable young people". Certainly, a great many fashion designers are convinced that women look at what she is wearing and think: "If I bought that frock, then I, too, could look like Kate Moss." But does anybody actually believe, even on a subconscious level, "If only I took cocaine and hung out with junkies, then I, too, could be slim and beautiful and earn millions of pounds every year"?
I reckon Moss is no more a role model for the impressionable young than Sir Ian is a role model for middle-aged men. After all, very few of us go around in expensive, showy-off half-moon spectacles, demanding the power to administer summary "justice" to our fellow citizens, just because the Met Commissioner is so often on the telly.
It is not as if Moss actively sought to have her alleged drug-taking splashed all over the papers, day after day. She wasn't saying: "Look at me! I take coke! You should try some yourself!" Indeed, she has made much more effort than most famous people to keep herself to herself, and we have every reason to believe she would very much have preferred it if the Mirror had decided against telling impressionable young people that she took drugs.
I don't understand how prosecuting Moss will help. As far as I can see, it will serve only to keep the story in the news, and so to remind the impressionable young that their "role model" is believed to have a taste for cocaine. By announcing that his purpose in launching an investigation was to make an example of the woman, Sir Ian is sending out the message: "Don't worry. We are only prosecuting her because she is famous. If you're not famous, you can take as much coke as you like and get away with it."
This might be unfair, but I get the impression that Sir Ian is much more of a publicity-seeker than Moss. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he chose to intervene in her case, knowing that invoking her name would guarantee him wide coverage in the media. A shyer man would surely have thought twice about suggesting publicly that the police should be allowed to bypass the courts, imposing anti-social behaviour orders and confiscating people's cars, so soon after his men had shot and killed an innocent Brazilian electrician, in the mistaken belief that he was an Islamic terrorist. Sir Ian's own role in that tragedy - allowing the falsehood to get about, uncorrected, that the victim's dress and behaviour had attracted suspicion, and that he had jumped over the barriers at Stockwell Underground station - hardly inspires confidence in the wisdom or honesty of the police. If the top man behaves in this way, why should we trust his underlings to show better judgment when they take it into their heads to confiscate our cars?
What is clear is that the police cannot be bothered or trusted properly to enforce the law as it applies to narcotics. The whole issue is a complete muddle, for which legislators and the police must share the blame. How utterly crass it was of my own local force in Lambeth to decide not to prosecute people for smoking cannabis, but to pursue the drug's suppliers without mercy. There you have a perfect recipe for crime - boosting the rewards of drug-dealing by simultaneously stimulating demand and suppressing supply.
I don't pretend to have the answer. The libertarian in me says that almost all the harm done to innocent third parties by the drugs trade springs from its illegality - the muggings and burglaries in Lambeth by desperados seeking money for their next fix, and the utter misery inflicted on the people of Jamaica by the murderers who control the trade. The obvious answer, therefore, is to legalise the sale and use of narcotics. But then the father in me answers that almost nothing would distress me more than that one of my sons should become hooked on drugs. Keep them illegal, says Father Tom.
These are agonisingly complicated problems, and it is not for bears of little brain, like Sir Ian Blair, to make up the answers. Instead, the commissioner should get on with his job of tackling crime in the capital, even-handedly and according to the laws laid down by Parliament. Yesterday, it emerged that the average London policeman solves 11.49 crimes in the course of an entire year, which works out at less than one crime a month. Perhaps Sir Ian thinks that when he has prosecuted Kate Moss, with the help of the Daily Mirror, that will be his work done for the month.
Most of us Londoners think differently.
From telegraph.co.uk
She deserves it. Drugs are not cool, and continuing to have a known drug user endorse a product is not something most companies want to deal with. Remember, young girls read fashion mags and idolize models.
I wouldn't say this is the end for her though. Perhaps this will force her into rehab where she can come out again later as a healthy model.
I wouldn't say this is the end for her though. Perhaps this will force her into rehab where she can come out again later as a healthy model.
Honestly, when on earth did Kate ever make herself out to be a role model? 
couturecate
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sepia said:
I think it's very easy to be this dogmatic, decisive and judgemental when you're young/very young. Drugs for her, at this point, I would imagine have nothing to do with cool. You need to remember that she hit it big at age 14, completely uneducated and from a lower-middle-class family, in the late eighties--things were insane (drug-wise). She had a lot to cope with at a very young age, granted it was all about success, but it was pressure. She has never known a normal existence, has been universally famous for more than 1/2 her life--this is something none of us can fully comprehend. There has been a notorious amount of drug use throughout the fashion world, as well as hollywood since the 90's, 80's, 70's, etc ... it's just a matter of how much people have been busted. It's gone on all along and will continue to do so, it's been speculated that her only "crime" was getting caught. I submit that she knew that on some level, got more careless with her actions because she perhaps wanted to be caught to find treatment, and this is the result.
This is a really complicated issue that's so unimportant in comparison to what's going on around the world. She deserves slack and help, as well as compassion. Yes she did it to herself, but it's pretty much what she was shown of the industry since she started and what was positively reinforced (we all tend to prefer the more energetic & skinny models--they catch on quick).
She's never pretended to be a role model and has gone out of her way to not be interviewed and stay out of the publice eye, except for the unavoidable papparazzi stuff.
I get the huge criticism due to Lila, but I too have very young children. I look at the insane circumstances under which she herself has grown up in the past 17 years, under the public microscope, and can't imagine what it's been like for her.
She's been a joy & inspiration to many of us who've loved fashion for the past 17 years.
A point other posters have previously made; her sponsors who dropped her had fully capitalilzed on her glamorous image and edge. The fact that she was actually living the life that many advertisements depict and general images imply, is completely hypocritical of all of these companies--they want to have it both ways (be edgy & politically correct). Think of perfume ads; YSL Opium -- the name says it all, the infinite number of high fashion ads that depict borderline orgies or lesbian acts. The industry is practially based on controversy and sex, now they choose to condemn her for actually living it when it's all she's known since the age of 14! It's Bull#*^t,
she deserves better. Where would the british fashion scene be without her?
She's the only fashion personality left who's not a designer; there are no model-personalities left. I could state it as "supermodel" but that does not sum her up and it sounds so stupid, she doesn't interview and I think that's smart--how many times do you cringe when you read what a model has to say? She deserves icon status and some level of protected status; what's gone on with the Brit press & police is horrible, she has done Britain's fashion industry more good (financially) than they can possibly conceive of. She's done her job well and that has nothing to do with her personal actions, she deserves some degree of privacy and respect--look what the British press did to Diana.
stylegurrl
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Stern cancels 60th anniversary ad campaign with Kate Moss
Stern cancels 60th anniversary ad campaign with Kate Moss
H Stern has cancelled their forthcoming 60th anniversary advertising campaign with Kate Moss.
The fashion world has distanced themselves from the model since her drug taking was revealed by The Mirror.
Since the revelations last week, Moss has lost nearly all her contracts and some are still under review. H& M dropped her first, followed by Burberry, Chanel and Gloria Vanderbilt denim.
The campaign has already been shot by British photographer Rankin and it is too late to pull November and December adverts from the glossy magazines. Marketing Director Angela Hansen said that the company could not have anticipated what happened and that they were cancelling the campaign.
In the official statement the company strongly condemned any type of drug use and confirmed their zero tolerance policy of substance abuse.
They did add that Moss was "professional, courteous and pleasant" when they worked on the campaign with her.
Moss released a statement yesterday apologising for her behaviour and taking full responsibility for her actions.
Femalefirst.uk
Stern cancels 60th anniversary ad campaign with Kate Moss
H Stern has cancelled their forthcoming 60th anniversary advertising campaign with Kate Moss.
The fashion world has distanced themselves from the model since her drug taking was revealed by The Mirror.
Since the revelations last week, Moss has lost nearly all her contracts and some are still under review. H& M dropped her first, followed by Burberry, Chanel and Gloria Vanderbilt denim.
The campaign has already been shot by British photographer Rankin and it is too late to pull November and December adverts from the glossy magazines. Marketing Director Angela Hansen said that the company could not have anticipated what happened and that they were cancelling the campaign.
In the official statement the company strongly condemned any type of drug use and confirmed their zero tolerance policy of substance abuse.
They did add that Moss was "professional, courteous and pleasant" when they worked on the campaign with her.
Moss released a statement yesterday apologising for her behaviour and taking full responsibility for her actions.
Femalefirst.uk
stylegurrl
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The rise and fall of Kate Moss
[font=times new roman, times, serif]The skeletal model's coke-fueled plunge from grace has exposed some ugly truths about the fashion industry -- not least its world-class hypocrisy.[/font][font=times new roman, times, serif][size=-1]- - - - - - - - - - - -[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Rebecca Traister[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sept. 23, 2005 | [/font] [font=times new roman, times, serif]As the 1980s melted into the 1990s, a new breed of supermodel started stalking the earth. Her emaciated frame made Twiggy's look chunky; she appeared permanently prepubescent; her sunken-eyed pallor made her look like a junkie. She was embodied by Kate Moss.
Moss and her band of wraiths not only drove insanely beautiful but fleshy models like Cindy Crawford and Kathy Ireland from magazine covers, they also slammed a heavy door on Nancy Reagan's 1980s-era "Just Say No" campaign against drug use. Their message was louder and prettier than the prudish abstinence-pushing project led by Reagan. It was accompanied by the melodies of the drug-fueled conflagration that was the Seattle music scene. They were waifs. They were heroin chic.
Now, 15 years later, in a set of circumstances that have exposed the hypocrisy and sanctimony of everyone involved, Moss and the fashion industry are becoming accidental and unwilling poster children for a new anti-drug message.
Two weeks ago, during New York City's Fashion Week, London's Daily Mirror newspaper splashed its cover with an image of Moss -- still a supermodel at 31, as well as mother to a 2-year-old daughter -- cutting lines of cocaine on a CD jewel box. "Cocaine Kate: Supermodel Kate Moss snorts line after line," blared the cover. An inset photo showed her leaning down to inhale the lines of white powder through a rolled up 5-pound note. Moss' career is now in sudden free fall. She has since had her contracts with H&M and Burberry canceled; her longtime relationship with Chanel will not continue past October; and she's been publicly spanked by employers like Rimmel and Gloria Vanderbilt.
News that models do blow is akin to news that rock stars have casual sex: not news at all. But the Moss humiliation was special. While photographers and models haunt the same VIP rooms, presumably sometimes partaking in illegal activities together, rarely do we see photographic evidence of cocaine getting sucked into recognizable nostrils. In this case, the Mirror -- perhaps smarting from the pricey loss of a libel suit Moss brought in response to its allegation that she had fallen into a drug-induced coma in 2001 -- had sent someone on an "undercover investigation."
The "investigation" captured not only grainy still images of Moss' inhalations, but a videotape of the debauched evening, which took place at a West London recording studio where her boyfriend's band Babyshambles was laying down tracks. The boyfriend, Pete Doherty, is the heroin- and cocaine-addicted musician, burglar and all-around yuck-bomb whom the model has been seeing off and on for months. The press has been full of dire warnings to Moss about the perils of her relationship with him, with Doherty's ex describing him as "evil." Moss' press-happy friend Sadie Frost told reporters that Doherty is "not the sort of guy you'd wish for your best friend. He's very wild. Kate's got a history of partying hard. The idea of them together is terrible."
Of course, all this attention has made their romance all the more compelling, which in turn has lent the tale of Moss' druggy downfall at the hands of Doherty and his skuzzy friends an even more satisfying frisson of comeuppance. Thanks to Internet technology, the images and lurid reports of Moss' coked-out antics, including her twitchy nose-rubbing, conversational inanities, and chopping of 20 lines (she snorted five), have shot round the world in nanoseconds.
It's this readily available evidence, perhaps, that has made the usually lifestyle-blind fashion industry turn so violently on Moss. Though she has not made a public statement about her recent narcotic consumption, Moss has spent the week meeting with the companies she represents. Swedish clothing chain H&M had announced it would give her a second chance, but canceled her contract on Tuesday, citing customer complaints. Chanel, a company for which Moss has modeled since 2001, released a statement claiming that it will not renew her contract once her current cycle of ads is retired in October. And while Burberry's public statement was solicitous, pointing out that Moss has "worked successfully" with them over the years, and that she "has always been highly professional," they too brought their relationship with her to an end, a decision that will cost them a considerable amount of money, since they will have to reshoot an already finished ad campaign.
Now it's mostly a question of falling dominoes. Moss, who reportedly makes $9 million a year, will surely lose most, if not all, of her current gigs. Who will want to keep her on, when to do so would signal brazen public support of a woman whose drug use is now being investigated by Scotland Yard?
Of course, Moss' real error was in getting caught on tape, a situation that is certainly unfortunate for her, but just as inconvenient for fashion companies, now forced to place their favorite clotheshorse in the stocks, and to distance themselves from her by proclaiming their wide-eyed innocence.
What this drama has done is lay bare the ugly skeleton that holds up a fashion industry that for some time has prized hollow cheeks and vacant eyes, stunted, prepubescent frames, and jutting collar bones from which fabric drapes beautifully. In other words, the body that is appealing to designers -- and thus to consumers -- is a body that looks like it has been ravaged by drugs. In order to stay employed, models must maintain this shape; to maintain the shape they must do something besides eat right and exercise regularly. Whether it's cocaine or speed or heroin or caffeine or cigarettes or anorexia or bulimia or some combination of the above, most adult women cannot get bodies that look like Moss' healthily, because hers is not a healthy body.
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for cosmetics firm Rimmel announced that the company was "shocked and dismayed by the recent press allegations surrounding" Moss, and that it would reconsider its relationship with her. Earlier, the CEO for Gloria Vanderbilt denim had told the press, "We would have second thoughts about using Kate Moss" again, and that "we weren't aware of any issues with Kate prior to this campaign."
The fashion companies' professions of surprise are hard to believe. Would it be more embarrassing for them to admit they hired a model who they knew had done drugs than it is for them to admit to never having picked up a paper? Moss has spoken of her own drug use many times, and did a widely reported stint in rehab in 1998. She has denied heroin use, and often claimed she was clean, but in 2003 she gave an interview in which she said that dabbling was fine, but that an earlier period she'd spent immersed in drug use "wasn't a nice time."
Moss' record alone renders Gloria Vanderbilt's and Rimmel's assertions of naiveté ludicrous. And what about H&M's statement to the New York Times, that "If someone is going to be the face of H&M, it is important they be healthy, wholesome and sound"? The spokeswoman also told the Times that after feedback, "we decided we should distance ourselves from any kind of drug abuse."
Remember Capt. Renault's assertion to Rick Blaine in "Casablanca" that he is "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here," just before the croupier hands him his winnings?
If it were important that the face of H&M be healthy, wholesome and sound, the company would have very few working models to choose from, and everyone -- both in and out of the fashion industry -- knows that.
This week, London Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told the Mirror that they're pursuing an investigation of Moss' drug use because "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behavior on impressionable young people." But measuring the impact of Moss and her behavior is long overdue. How many eating disorders have been launched by a fashion industry that put Moss' look -- no fat, no flesh, no physical sign that she has consumed nutrients -- on every billboard and runway? For more than a decade, awkward 15-year-olds have scanned the pages of fashion magazines, trying to figure out what they are expected to look like if they want to be considered attractive. And what they found was Moss and the consumptive figure she made popular.
In truth, the impression that Moss has made in the past two weeks has probably been one of the healthier ones in her history -- simply because this chapter of her life has made drug use and addiction look not like giggling fun for beautiful people, but like a habit that can be sad and grimy, and which can produce terrible personal and professional results. Those pictures of her were ugly. They looked sad. The rolled-up fiver was skanky, as was her outfit. This was not the glamourous Mediterranean bar-top bacchanal that some might fantasize about when they think about a model's hard-living lifestyle. This was a filthy room with gross people.
And her professional offloading certainly hasn't seemed like it's been fun. Reports had Moss in tears when she heard that Chanel would not be renewing with her. The industry that sent her to the stratosphere has cut her loose without much of a second thought. When cornered by reporters after the Mirror story first appeared, a distraught Moss told them to, "f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off! Just f*ck off!" Her father, caught at his home in West Sussex, England, and shown the pictures of his daughter doing illegal drugs, said only, "It doesn't surprise me." A London Sun report today had Moss smoking crack, a drug that has no street glamour at all. The only good news, as reported in the gossip columns, is that she may have broken up with Doherty again.
But between her personal humiliation, professional tumble, declining economic prospects, soured romance, and dire image problems, Kate Moss -- avatar of 1990s heroin grunge -- has this week become a walking D.A.R.E. ad.
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[font=times new roman, times, serif]About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
Salon.com
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[font=times new roman, times, serif]The skeletal model's coke-fueled plunge from grace has exposed some ugly truths about the fashion industry -- not least its world-class hypocrisy.[/font][font=times new roman, times, serif][size=-1]- - - - - - - - - - - -[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Rebecca Traister[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sept. 23, 2005 | [/font] [font=times new roman, times, serif]As the 1980s melted into the 1990s, a new breed of supermodel started stalking the earth. Her emaciated frame made Twiggy's look chunky; she appeared permanently prepubescent; her sunken-eyed pallor made her look like a junkie. She was embodied by Kate Moss.
Moss and her band of wraiths not only drove insanely beautiful but fleshy models like Cindy Crawford and Kathy Ireland from magazine covers, they also slammed a heavy door on Nancy Reagan's 1980s-era "Just Say No" campaign against drug use. Their message was louder and prettier than the prudish abstinence-pushing project led by Reagan. It was accompanied by the melodies of the drug-fueled conflagration that was the Seattle music scene. They were waifs. They were heroin chic.
Now, 15 years later, in a set of circumstances that have exposed the hypocrisy and sanctimony of everyone involved, Moss and the fashion industry are becoming accidental and unwilling poster children for a new anti-drug message.
Two weeks ago, during New York City's Fashion Week, London's Daily Mirror newspaper splashed its cover with an image of Moss -- still a supermodel at 31, as well as mother to a 2-year-old daughter -- cutting lines of cocaine on a CD jewel box. "Cocaine Kate: Supermodel Kate Moss snorts line after line," blared the cover. An inset photo showed her leaning down to inhale the lines of white powder through a rolled up 5-pound note. Moss' career is now in sudden free fall. She has since had her contracts with H&M and Burberry canceled; her longtime relationship with Chanel will not continue past October; and she's been publicly spanked by employers like Rimmel and Gloria Vanderbilt.
News that models do blow is akin to news that rock stars have casual sex: not news at all. But the Moss humiliation was special. While photographers and models haunt the same VIP rooms, presumably sometimes partaking in illegal activities together, rarely do we see photographic evidence of cocaine getting sucked into recognizable nostrils. In this case, the Mirror -- perhaps smarting from the pricey loss of a libel suit Moss brought in response to its allegation that she had fallen into a drug-induced coma in 2001 -- had sent someone on an "undercover investigation."
The "investigation" captured not only grainy still images of Moss' inhalations, but a videotape of the debauched evening, which took place at a West London recording studio where her boyfriend's band Babyshambles was laying down tracks. The boyfriend, Pete Doherty, is the heroin- and cocaine-addicted musician, burglar and all-around yuck-bomb whom the model has been seeing off and on for months. The press has been full of dire warnings to Moss about the perils of her relationship with him, with Doherty's ex describing him as "evil." Moss' press-happy friend Sadie Frost told reporters that Doherty is "not the sort of guy you'd wish for your best friend. He's very wild. Kate's got a history of partying hard. The idea of them together is terrible."
Of course, all this attention has made their romance all the more compelling, which in turn has lent the tale of Moss' druggy downfall at the hands of Doherty and his skuzzy friends an even more satisfying frisson of comeuppance. Thanks to Internet technology, the images and lurid reports of Moss' coked-out antics, including her twitchy nose-rubbing, conversational inanities, and chopping of 20 lines (she snorted five), have shot round the world in nanoseconds.
It's this readily available evidence, perhaps, that has made the usually lifestyle-blind fashion industry turn so violently on Moss. Though she has not made a public statement about her recent narcotic consumption, Moss has spent the week meeting with the companies she represents. Swedish clothing chain H&M had announced it would give her a second chance, but canceled her contract on Tuesday, citing customer complaints. Chanel, a company for which Moss has modeled since 2001, released a statement claiming that it will not renew her contract once her current cycle of ads is retired in October. And while Burberry's public statement was solicitous, pointing out that Moss has "worked successfully" with them over the years, and that she "has always been highly professional," they too brought their relationship with her to an end, a decision that will cost them a considerable amount of money, since they will have to reshoot an already finished ad campaign.
Now it's mostly a question of falling dominoes. Moss, who reportedly makes $9 million a year, will surely lose most, if not all, of her current gigs. Who will want to keep her on, when to do so would signal brazen public support of a woman whose drug use is now being investigated by Scotland Yard?
Of course, Moss' real error was in getting caught on tape, a situation that is certainly unfortunate for her, but just as inconvenient for fashion companies, now forced to place their favorite clotheshorse in the stocks, and to distance themselves from her by proclaiming their wide-eyed innocence.
What this drama has done is lay bare the ugly skeleton that holds up a fashion industry that for some time has prized hollow cheeks and vacant eyes, stunted, prepubescent frames, and jutting collar bones from which fabric drapes beautifully. In other words, the body that is appealing to designers -- and thus to consumers -- is a body that looks like it has been ravaged by drugs. In order to stay employed, models must maintain this shape; to maintain the shape they must do something besides eat right and exercise regularly. Whether it's cocaine or speed or heroin or caffeine or cigarettes or anorexia or bulimia or some combination of the above, most adult women cannot get bodies that look like Moss' healthily, because hers is not a healthy body.
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for cosmetics firm Rimmel announced that the company was "shocked and dismayed by the recent press allegations surrounding" Moss, and that it would reconsider its relationship with her. Earlier, the CEO for Gloria Vanderbilt denim had told the press, "We would have second thoughts about using Kate Moss" again, and that "we weren't aware of any issues with Kate prior to this campaign."
The fashion companies' professions of surprise are hard to believe. Would it be more embarrassing for them to admit they hired a model who they knew had done drugs than it is for them to admit to never having picked up a paper? Moss has spoken of her own drug use many times, and did a widely reported stint in rehab in 1998. She has denied heroin use, and often claimed she was clean, but in 2003 she gave an interview in which she said that dabbling was fine, but that an earlier period she'd spent immersed in drug use "wasn't a nice time."
Moss' record alone renders Gloria Vanderbilt's and Rimmel's assertions of naiveté ludicrous. And what about H&M's statement to the New York Times, that "If someone is going to be the face of H&M, it is important they be healthy, wholesome and sound"? The spokeswoman also told the Times that after feedback, "we decided we should distance ourselves from any kind of drug abuse."
Remember Capt. Renault's assertion to Rick Blaine in "Casablanca" that he is "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here," just before the croupier hands him his winnings?
If it were important that the face of H&M be healthy, wholesome and sound, the company would have very few working models to choose from, and everyone -- both in and out of the fashion industry -- knows that.
This week, London Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told the Mirror that they're pursuing an investigation of Moss' drug use because "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behavior on impressionable young people." But measuring the impact of Moss and her behavior is long overdue. How many eating disorders have been launched by a fashion industry that put Moss' look -- no fat, no flesh, no physical sign that she has consumed nutrients -- on every billboard and runway? For more than a decade, awkward 15-year-olds have scanned the pages of fashion magazines, trying to figure out what they are expected to look like if they want to be considered attractive. And what they found was Moss and the consumptive figure she made popular.
In truth, the impression that Moss has made in the past two weeks has probably been one of the healthier ones in her history -- simply because this chapter of her life has made drug use and addiction look not like giggling fun for beautiful people, but like a habit that can be sad and grimy, and which can produce terrible personal and professional results. Those pictures of her were ugly. They looked sad. The rolled-up fiver was skanky, as was her outfit. This was not the glamourous Mediterranean bar-top bacchanal that some might fantasize about when they think about a model's hard-living lifestyle. This was a filthy room with gross people.
And her professional offloading certainly hasn't seemed like it's been fun. Reports had Moss in tears when she heard that Chanel would not be renewing with her. The industry that sent her to the stratosphere has cut her loose without much of a second thought. When cornered by reporters after the Mirror story first appeared, a distraught Moss told them to, "f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off! Just f*ck off!" Her father, caught at his home in West Sussex, England, and shown the pictures of his daughter doing illegal drugs, said only, "It doesn't surprise me." A London Sun report today had Moss smoking crack, a drug that has no street glamour at all. The only good news, as reported in the gossip columns, is that she may have broken up with Doherty again.
But between her personal humiliation, professional tumble, declining economic prospects, soured romance, and dire image problems, Kate Moss -- avatar of 1990s heroin grunge -- has this week become a walking D.A.R.E. ad.
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[font=times new roman, times, serif]About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
Salon.com
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melt977 said:Kate Moss a role model? I don't think so
By Tom Utley
(Filed: 23/09/2005)
It is not as if Moss actively sought to have her alleged drug-taking splashed all over the papers, day after day. She wasn't saying: "Look at me! I take coke! You should try some yourself!" Indeed, she has made much more effort than most famous people to keep herself to herself, and we have every reason to believe she would very much have preferred it if the Mirror had decided against telling impressionable young people that she took drugs.
I don't understand how prosecuting Moss will help. As far as I can see, it will serve only to keep the story in the news, and so to remind the impressionable young that their "role model" is believed to have a taste for cocaine. By announcing that his purpose in launching an investigation was to make an example of the woman, Sir Ian is sending out the message: "Don't worry. We are only prosecuting her because she is famous. If you're not famous, you can take as much coke as you like and get away with it."
---
What is clear is that the police cannot be bothered or trusted properly to enforce the law as it applies to narcotics. The whole issue is a complete muddle, for which legislators and the police must share the blame. How utterly crass it was of my own local force in Lambeth to decide not to prosecute people for smoking cannabis, but to pursue the drug's suppliers without mercy. There you have a perfect recipe for crime - boosting the rewards of drug-dealing by simultaneously stimulating demand and suppressing supply.
I don't pretend to have the answer. The libertarian in me says that almost all the harm done to innocent third parties by the drugs trade springs from its illegality - the muggings and burglaries in Lambeth by desperados seeking money for their next fix, and the utter misery inflicted on the people of Jamaica by the murderers who control the trade. The obvious answer, therefore, is to legalise the sale and use of narcotics. But then the father in me answers that almost nothing would distress me more than that one of my sons should become hooked on drugs. Keep them illegal, says Father Tom.
These are agonisingly complicated problems, and it is not for bears of little brain, like Sir Ian Blair, to make up the answers. Instead, the commissioner should get on with his job of tackling crime in the capital, even-handedly and according to the laws laid down by Parliament. Yesterday, it emerged that the average London policeman solves 11.49 crimes in the course of an entire year, which works out at less than one crime a month. Perhaps Sir Ian thinks that when he has prosecuted Kate Moss, with the help of the Daily Mirror, that will be his work done for the month.
Most of us Londoners think differently.
From telegraph.co.uk
Brilliant analysis. He really points out the deep difficulties with this in his last two paragraphs. It's possible that the drug issue is the most difficult one there is. Nobody should have to be an addict, but still every great record you've ever heard has at least partly been performed under the influence. To parents, nothing is more important than that nobody runs a risk of becoming an addict but to many kids rock music seems much more important than the well being of some unfortunate addicts.
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melt977 said:The Times
If Cocaine Kate is a role model, please excuse my snorts of derision
Notebook by Mick Hume
THE CARRY-ON about Kate Moss, the cocaine-taking model, has at least helped to clear up the confusion about official attitudes to Class A drugs. We now know that it is no longer considered illegal or immoral to take cocaine at parties, nightclubs, fashion shows or just about anywhere else. However, it is deemed a heinous crime to be seen taking cocaine on the front page of a newspaper. After years of being glamorised and rewarded for pursuing her “party lifestyle”, it must have come as a shock to Ms Moss to realise that she is suddenly said to have done something wrong. Since the papers got hold of grainy photos of her apparently snorting coke, followed by further ripsnorting revelations about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, she has transmogrified overnight from the “coolest chick on the planet” to a hot potato at the centre of a drug-fuelled moral panic.
It's been said before, but part of Kate's allure is/was the glamourously destructive hedonistic rock star lifestyle people imagined she lives.
I think what she really did wrong here was being caught in a seedy situation. Had she been photographed all dolled up snorting cocaine at a fabulous party filled with fashionable people, it would've been unappropriate. She got caught in unglamourous surroundings with less than gorgeous company. That's not only unappropriate, it's unforgivable it seems. The glamourous image has been stained.
I don't think the issue here is drug (ab)use, it's just an image problem.
i agree Tott,
IMO the whole problem in the equation is Pete and his dirty scummy friends who go to dirty scummy places to do dirty scummy things
it was the fact that it looked so filthy dirty. she looked like a prostitute addict in the photos. if she was bending over in a balenciaga dress and louboutin heels it definately wouldnt have been such an issue
IMO the whole problem in the equation is Pete and his dirty scummy friends who go to dirty scummy places to do dirty scummy things
it was the fact that it looked so filthy dirty. she looked like a prostitute addict in the photos. if she was bending over in a balenciaga dress and louboutin heels it definately wouldnt have been such an issue
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