by Annie Vischer
Kate Moss is everywhere at the minute. Just for a change. And it seems that Paris has its arms outstretched to adopt our Brit born fashion legend as its own. Their television channel showed a special documentary dedicated to the supermodel and her 40th birthday called Looking For Kate (we have yet to hear when it will make its way to the UK!) and now one of its galleries, Galerie ArtCube, is boasting a number of early Kate Moss snaps from 1990 taken by Kate Garner.
Kate Garner spoke to Cut about the collection of photographs, and gave some little gems of titbits when describing how they came about. One of the pictures shows Moss sitting on the floor of a hotel room, light streaming through the windows. In it she wears underwear that Garner reveals was her boyfriend’s that she arrived wearing. According to Garner ‘she had spent the night with him and hadn’t brought clean knickers with her’. It seems Kate has been carrying her rock ‘n roll aura with her since the word ‘go’.
Rather unbelievably, having originally been commissioned for Esquire, Garner’s shots were cut from the final edit. Esquire had neglected to foresee Moss’ swift rise to fame, and when they finally clocked on, they contacted Garner to organise another shoot. Garner says the pictures were later published to accompany ‘a scathing piece about how these waif girls had the audacity to challenge the beauty icons who were already established’.
Of the high-socked, teddy bear shots Kate Garner says that the bear was ‘thrust into [Kate’s] hands to keep her breasts secret’. Very close to it in the same exhibition stands an incredibly similar 2007 shot by Mike Figgis, showing her 17 years older, just as provocative and beautiful. It perhaps shows how early Kate was thrust into the world of modelling, celebrity and media, where age is negligible compared to the importance of looks.