Kate Moss on thin ice

Published on Thursday 19 November 2009 20:54

SUPERMODEL Kate Moss has put her stiletto-clad foot in her lipglossed mouth by declaring "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels". The response has been one of shock and outrage, but are we overreacting, asks Alice Wyllie

&#149 Supermodel Kate Moss

FROM an early stage in her career, supermodel Kate Moss has made a point of keeping her lips sealed. A shut mooth, she understands, catches nae fleas. And that approach has worked wonders for her career. No-one really knows that when she does speak, her Croydon accent is about as far from supermodel chic as a Big Mac is from dinner at the Ivy. And more to the point, no-one has any idea if she has anything significant to say, because she refuses to run the risk of making a fool of herself.

Until now, that is. Since she launched her clothing line for Topshop in 2007, she has been obliged to speak to the Press, and, just as quickly as the veil of mystery surrounding her has dropped, she's started putting her stiletto-clad foot in her lipglossed mouth.

In a recent interview with US fashion website WWD, she was asked if there are any mottos that she lives by. Her response was dramatic, yet very believable: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels".

Unsurprisingly, the reaction to her comments has been one of shock and outrage. The motto appears on a number of websites promoting anorexia, as do pictures of Moss at her slimmest, to act as "thinspiration". Plus-size models and eating disorder charities have condemned the comments, and Grace Coia, of the Centre for Eating Disorders Scotland, says that she has heard similar mottos and sayings from patients.

"Often people with eating disorders will live by a motto like this one," she says. "And for the people who do, that really is the way they feel. I once asked a young woman with anorexia what makes her feel truly, blissfully happy. Her answer was that she feels best when she can twist the waistband on her skirt around and read the small dress size on the label. So it's a much deeper thing than just looking like a model. It's a mental disorder and it's about control."

Moss, 35, is one of those rare things in fashion: a model well over the age of 21, and under 5ft8in who continues to bat in the big leagues and shows no sign of slowing down. Hers was the face and body that helped coin the phrase "heroin chic" in the early 1990s, as fashion moved away from the 1980s trend for fleshier supermodels such as Cindy Crawford, thanks to her waif-like frame and androgynous appeal.

She has always denied allegations that she has an eating disorder, and, in a rare discussion with Interview magazine last year, spoke out about the criticism she has come under throughout her career for her extremely slim appearance: "I was never anorexic, so I was never that skinny. I was never boney-boney.

"But I remember thinking: 'I don't want to be this skinny.' I didn't eat for a long time. Not on purpose. You'd be on shoots with bad food, or get on a plane and the food would be so disgusting you couldn't eat it. You go to a show, and there's no food at all, so, if you're doing shows back to back, you can forget eating."

Today Moss is a bona-fide brand. She has appeared on more than 300 magazine covers. Girls and young women are obsessed with her quirky personal style. She is often described as a role model, yet it's a label she has never sought or nurtured. Indeed, if anything, her lifestyle suggests she actively discourages it.

She doesn't hide the fact that she smokes and drinks. She is very thin, particularly for her age. She has a seven-year-old daughter Lila Grace (who last year was spotted riding a quad bike with her mother without wearing a helmet) yet admits she has a taste for "dangerous" men and was engaged to heroin addict Pete Doherty for eight months. And in 2005 she was photographed apparently snorting cocaine, though no charges were ever brought against her. She has said that in her next life she wants to be a rock star, and it's pretty obvious that that's exactly the lifestyle she seeks to emulate in the here and now.

Not only does she not want to be a role model; she isn't one, and she never has been. There is no fall from grace here; Kate Moss has always been a wild child whose advice you'd take at your own peril. The one positive trait that has emerged in this furore is her honesty.

Her recent comments sound like the reckless ramblings of the ultimate fashion victim and yet there is something refreshing about hearing them. Where size four models and celebrities will regularly gush in interviews that their skinny frame is down to "constantly running after the kids" or "a fast metabolism" or even "cutting out Mars bars", here is a woman who has admitted that, as a mother in her thirties, the only way she can maintain a physique that's borderline impossible for most is by adhering to a personal motto that is borderline insane.

She does nothing to nurture the myth that skinny models are naturally so. Instead she reveals the sacrifice that she must continue to make in order to survive in a thin-obsessed industry.

"It's irresponsible for the fashion industry to suggest that it's easy to achieve a skinny aesthetic," says Cheryl Hughes, the founder and director of Hughes Models, the world's first plus size model agency.

"There are women in the industry who can eat what they want and remain very thin, but they're rare. I'll always remember seeing a model rushed to hospital because she was starving herself to remain a size ten.

"Today models are usually much smaller than that. Kate Moss is telling the truth; for most women it takes huge sacrifices and an unhealthy diet to stay thin enough for the fashion industry. However, her comments are hugely irresponsible and she should never have aired them."

While the reaction to Moss's comments has been negative, such a response from within the fashion industry could only be perceived as hypocritical. From models to editors, a large chunk of women in the industry not only lend credence to such a motto by perpetuating the myth that a woman's worth is in inverse correlation to her dress size, but it's a motto that many of them seem to apply to their own lives.

Moss's comments would be amusing in their absurdity if it wasn't for the fact that so many people share her opinion. We should only feel sorry for her, and look to the rest of her life for evidence that taking her advice would be unwise to say the least. Quite simply, taking a supermodel's advice about diet is like taking a rock star's advice about sobriety. When it comes to wardrobe tips, tidbits from Kate Moss are like manna from heaven. On any other subject, however, she should stick to plan A and keep her mouth shut.