Kate's top 10 fashion moments
1. At the opening of long-time friend and collaborator Mario Testino’s exhibition, in 2002, Kate wore a stunning fur coat over a barely-there black dress, whose straps left little to the imagination. Despite the risqué ensemble, Kate still managed to look characteristically chic.
2. When attending the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, with then boyfriend, Johnny Depp, Kate subtly rebelled against the expected dress code of glitzy ballgowns, and chose a simple black dress with a marabou feather trim. Tracey Tolkien, of vintage story Steinberg & Tolkien, said this dress was “from Montaldos, a very exclusive shop (who would) go to Europe and buy Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Schiaparelli and then ripped the labels out... Kate was always into the little black dress... The cutting so, so good, it give her this hugely hourglass figure.”
3. After singlehandedly kickstarting the trend for skinny jeans, Kate surprised her fans when she wore high-waist, flared jeans at the Topshop fashion show during London Fashion Week, in 2006. Pairing the 1970s-style jeans with a thin marl-grey t-shirt, Kate proved that she could make a jeans-and-tee combo look stylish.
4. In the early 2000s, when young pop stars and actresses were wearing low-cut jeans and t-shirts, Kate “revived that 1950s thing, demure 1950s dresses and fur coats,” says vintage dealer, Tracey Tolkien. Kate wore a 1950s-style dress, by Sue Stemp, for her 30th birthday lunch, with a vintage leopard print coat and black Mary-Jane shoes.
5. To launch her first Kate Moss collection for Topshop, in May, 2007, Moss posed in the window display of the brand’s flagship store, on Oxford Circus, in floor-length red ruffled dress. She later wore a black version of the dress to the ‘Poiret: King of Fashion’ Costume Institute Gala later that same month.
6. Before Kate and her friends turned the 2003 Glastonbury festival into a weekend-long dressing-up session, ‘festival fashion’ consisted of jeans and t-shirts. Here she is at Glastonbury, in 2005, in her signature hot pants and waistcoat, Hunter wellies and that mane of bed-head hair.
7. Following the ‘Cocaine Kate’ scandal, Moss kept a lower profile, but made an exception for the Metropolitan Museum of Art AngloMania Gala in May, 2005. Under contract to Burberry, designer Christopher Bailey created a tuxedo and sheer top for Moss, which she matched with leather leggings. Kate stood out amongst all the floor-length evening dresses. Fashion editor Brana Wold said “Kate has the ability to take classics and give them such a twist that they become very original.”
8. Kate wore this vintage, cream-satin gown with leg o’mutton sleeves to the ‘Golden Age of Couture Gala’ at the V&A Museum, in London, in September 2007. Styled to perfection with tousled hair and bright-red lips, the dress, and its tiny train, were soon ruined, torn to shreds by fellow attendees’ feet. Ever the stylist, Kate simply tied the dress into a bow at her hip, transforming the gown into a short cocktail dress, refusing to allow the mishap to spoil her fun.
9. For the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, in London, Moss, Naomi Campbell, and other notable British models, appeared on floats in stunning gold dresses, perfectly illustrating the influence of the British in fashion. Kate, wearing Alexander McQueen, is perhaps the most successful British model of all time, and is one of the few to continue to enjoy a career into her 40th year.
10. For the annual Prince’s Trust Fashion Rocks concert, in October 2007, Kate wore a one-off version of a flapper dress from her own collection. It was embellished with 60,000 Swarovski crystals, which were sewn on by hand. Sana Uddin, of royal embroiderers Hand & Lock, who were responsible for the job, said “the dress was based on one Kate has in her collection at home, which is an original 1920s flapper dress... It took a team of three people two weeks’ solid work to complete.”
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