September 09, 2024
Kate Moss’ famous skinny look in the ‘90s got her considerable flack from parents of young girls at the time.
In a new documentary about ‘90s fashion industry, the model revealed that people thought she promoted anorexia.
She said: “Parents would come up to me and say, ‘My daughter's anorexic’. It was awful.”
“I think because I was just skinny, and people weren't used to seeing skinny. But if I'd been more buxom, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. It's just that my body shape was different from the models before me.”
The “heroin chic” skinny look became popular after the model, then 19, posed in lingerie for a Vogue issue in 1993.
Sharing insight about the shoot with photographer Corinne Day, Moss said: “I just felt really good. The whole shoot, I felt really comfortable, I loved creating the images. You know, it wasn't glamorous. It was in my flat in London.”
“Our bedroom was like a bedsit. That's the kind of fashion I liked. It was much simpler.”
However, the shoot went on to receive considerable backlash due to the model’s extremely thin figure. Reflecting on it, fashion editor Catherine Kasterine said: “The public were not ready. They were absolutely appalled.”
She added: “Immediately, the pictures were completely vilified and slammed. Perhaps we'd underestimated how that look had in our minds been quite normal.”
Moss went on to pose for Levi's and Calvin Klein in the years that followed.
She faced huge backlash again when she posed topless for a Calvin Klein jeans ad with then-rapper Mark Wahlberg.
Recalling the shoot, Moss shared: “It was quite overwhelming. I was 18, you know, he was a big superstar rapper, and I still felt like I was just a girl from Croydon. They asked me to be topless. It was just a lot of people on set, a lot of men. I did feel vulnerable.”