Kate Moss: The Making of an Icon

“Mr. Salmon seems to have been blinded by the fact that Ms. Moss has had a very long career in terms of ‘shelf life’ for a model, and has infused his paean to her with nearly reverential tones. Yes, Kate Moss is a phenomenon in the business and perchance even a legend, but icon seems to conjure something worthy of an almost religious adoration. Kate Moss will be long remembered for her successful (and continuing) career in fashion. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about this book.”

Merriam Webster defines legend as a person or thing that inspires. Flip back a few sections and it defines icon as an emblem or symbol.

Mr. Salmon has decided that Kate Moss is an icon.

In my opinion, Miss Moss is more of a legend.

In the recent history of modeling and fashion there has rarely been a phenomenon quite on the scale of this model. While it may seem like splitting hairs, the icon tag justifies the depth with which Mr. Salmon has taken on to explain his choice of terminology. Kate Moss: The Making of an Icon turns out to be much more of a treatise on the life and times of Kate Moss, in which once again an author attempts to turn someone into a symbol, when in fact she is simply another in a cast of fashionista characters who simply was not in lockstep with her peers during the moment in time examined in the book.

If you are not a fan of Kate Moss, you can stop reading now. But if you do consider her a celebrity/model worthy of close examination, then prepare yourself for a much more intellectual and sociological take on Miss Moss’ long career than you would expect from a coffee table book.

Starting at the age of 15, Kate Moss has had an amazing run as a model despite intrusions of her private life into her public one—including high-profile relationships with “bad boy” boyfriends as well drugs—but then again so have so many who have come before her. In fact, Ms. Moss did more than survive her publicly aired foibles, she thrived despite her shortcomings, which became fodder for every type of gossip.

Rather than the sociological influence of her career and her supposed influence on fashion, one has not far to look for others who were equally influential in the world of fashion and also did not conform to the then norms of being a model. Case in point was Ines de la Fressange who was more the epitome of a 1950s model rather than one of the late 80s, much in the same vein as Kate Moss, who popularized the “heroin chic” look, and was considered “abnormal”—size zero, short for modeling standards, waifish—as opposed to the qualities of her Amazonian and curvier supermodel peers Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Claudia Schiffer.

Ms. Moss—with the enormous help of her agents, the media, and doting fashion designers—became ubiquitous on every continent, and was largely influential in turning the attention of Gen Y’ers toward the world of fashion. She was the “anti-supermodel.”

Mr. Salmon would have us believe that Miss Moss was a Svengali of some sort when she was actually a vehicle being driven by the world of fashion and all of its players. One would be more inclined to believe that she was at the right place at the right time.

Mr. Salmon seems to have been blinded by the fact that Ms. Moss has had a very long career in terms of “shelf life” for a model, and has infused his paean to her with nearly reverential tones. Yes, Kate Moss is a phenomenon in the business and perchance even a legend, but icon seems to conjure something worthy of an almost religious adoration. Kate Moss will be long remembered for her successful (and continuing) career in fashion. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about this book.