excerpt from the guardian. this collection is a lot more expensive and pieces are rare...
Inside Kate Moss's studio: an exclusive preview of her new Topshop collection
by jess cartner morley
  The model's new range is a 'wardrobe autobiography', featuring  recreations of her own personal favourites, from classic fringed leather  to her beloved 70s bohemia look 
Would you rather look on-trend, or would you rather look like Kate Moss?  Rhetorical question, obviously. Mossy is the unrivalled British style  icon of the past two decades. Her position at the top of every  best-dressed poll is unshakeable, despite – indeed, come to think of it,  partly because of – the fact that she more often wears old favourites  than straight-off-the-catwalk trophy fashion, and is more likely to be  snapped in yesterday's blow-dry, *** in hand, head thrown back in  laughter, than in polished-to-perfection celebrity-doll mode.
Seven years after the first Kate Moss for Topshop collection, and three  years after the collaboration was put on ice, Moss for Topshop is back.  Except this time it is different. Where the early collections were a  Moss-influenced take on that season's trends, the new range is Kate on  Kate: a wardrobe autobiography, in fringed leather and sequinned stars.  Seasonal trends are mostly ignored and, instead, the references are to  Moss's own wardrobe and personal style heroines. The silver-fringed  jacket that 
she wears on the cover of the latest issue of Vogue  is a recreation of a near-identical piece that she loved and lost. A  white Aztec-embroidered linen kaftan is a reproduction of a vintage  version that Moss still wears every summer.
Katy England, her longstanding collaborator, has worked with Moss and a  four-strong Topshop team to help turn vintage pieces, magazine tear  sheets and sketched ideas into a collection. More than a stylist,  England is fashion's go-to ghostwriter, with a talent for ordering and  untangling a designer's messy creative vision into a coherent  collection. She is 
the Andrew O'Hagan to Kate Moss's Julian Assange, if you like, although with a happier outcome. 
Moodboards created by Moss and England for the studio are dominated  by photos of the model off-duty: Kate entering Claridge's for her  "Beautiful and Damned"-themed 30th birthday party, Kate in hotpants,  Kate dressed for a date with Johnny Depp. Strikingly, there are very few  photos of Kate's modelling photos on the boards. This collection is all  about Kate as Kate. It's a reflection of how Moss's sense of her value  as a fashion brand outside her work as a model has grown. On the  moodboards, images of her are interspersed with a 30s Garbo in satin and  fur, a late-60s Marianne Faithfull, full-fringed and smiling in the  sunshine; a 70s holiday snap of Jane Birkin and her daughter; and  Michelle Pfeiffer as the ice-queen gangster moll Elvira Hancock in  1983's Scarface. All compelling beauties who chose not to conform to  conventional, domesticated female norms, women with dangerous tastes in  lovers and expensive tastes in clothes.
Which part of this collection appeals to you will depend on which  Kate Moss era you find most compelling. My favourite piece is a black  cocktail dress in raw Indian silk dupion with a textured, Shantung-silk  effect and a feathered neckline that exposes the shoulders. In an email  explaining the collection, Moss says it is "based on a vintage dress of  mine that has incredible seaming that makes you look so sexy. This is  definitely a date-night dress with a high-strappy shoe. Perfect for  drinks in Le Fumoir bar at Claridge's." And that, of course, is the Moss  magic right there: not just the dress itself (although the construction  is impressive, with a full lining and a bottom-flattering inverted back  pleat) but the night out that it promises. Not surprisingly for one of  the great hellraisers of her generation, Moss has nailed the party-dress  element of this range. A black maxi dress is sliced into ribbons from  hip level down to the hem, so that the shimmer lining of the  satin-backed crepe catches the light as you move. And at 40, Moss sees  the appeal of a non teeny-tiny cocktail option: a silk evening pyjama  set, with a cropped button-through top and a high-waisted, wide-legged  trouser, has both glamour and an appealing loucheness. ("I'll be wearing  this with a high shoe for evening, and then at the weekend in the  country at home for lounging around," says Moss.)
  The Kate Moss look does not come cheap, however, even at Topshop. The  range has been, in retail speak, "up-specced" since the previous  collections. Moss wanted to "make sure every piece is really special"  and the basics, such as cotton vests, which were part of the initial  offering, have been jettisoned, and fabrics have been upgraded across  the board. Embellished fabrics are two-a-penny on the high street these  days, but for the most part, they look it. Here, the embellishment is  densely clustered for a richness that gives a very different feel from  the sparse, night-market look of the cheap stuff. The "Aztec" kaftan  sells for £75, which is a good price for hand-embroidery on heavy Indian  linen, but still a lot for the average Topshop customer to spend on a  beach throw-on. An asymmetric yellow silk cocktail dress that Moss 
famously wore to a New York fashion week dinner in 2003,  that was "homaged" in the 2007 Topshop range in a cheap cotton version,  is here given a lavish reissue – this time using five metres of chiffon  for each dress, with an ensuing price tag of £85. (Topshop is making  the dress mostly in lemon yellow, with just a few in emerald and black.  Only Moss can make yellow the new black.) While most pieces are being  made in runs of many thousands and will be available in 38 countries –  the £50 studded denim hotpants and £65 paisley sundress, for example –  some are much more exclusive. An Elvira Hancock-esque scalloped blue  satin maxi, for example, of which only 20 are being made, will sell for  £295. The most expensive dress in the collection will be exclusive on  Net-A-Porter for £600, with 50 available.
Is there such a thing, in fashion, as too much Moss? Possibly. Uncle  Phil has perhaps overindulged Moss's weakness for 70s bohemia, a look  that is charming in small doses but which, when overdone, can get a bit  witchy. Sheer blouses with chiffon sleeves have a  Rumours-era-Stevie-Nicks vibe which looks stupid at the bus stop. Too  many handkerchief hems, too many magician's-assistant star motifs, and  too much fringing for my taste. A navy leather jacket has beautifully  moulded narrow shoulders but is then shredded from the ribs to hips – a  faithful reproduction of what Moss calls her "gig jacket". But the key  test of a celebrity-designed fashion collection is whether it feels like  the handwriting is genuine, whether the designs capture the essence of  the name they sell. And on that, this collection passes with flying  colours.