Background and career
Katherine Ann Moss (born 16 January 1974) is an English model. Arriving towards the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fashion icon status. She is known for her waifish figure, and role in size zero fashion. Moss has had her own clothing range, has been involved in musical projects, and is also a contributing fashion editor for British Vogue. In 2012, she came second on the Forbes top-earning models list, with estimated earnings of $9.2 million in one year. The accolades she has received for modelling include the 2013 British Fashion Awards acknowledging her contribution to fashion over 25 years, while Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2007.
A subject of media scrutiny due to her partying lifestyle, Moss was involved in a drug-use scandal in September 2005, which led to her being dropped from fashion campaigns. She was cleared of charges and soon resumed modelling. She has inspired cultural depictions including a £1.5m ($2.8m) 18 carat gold statue of her, by Marc Quinn, sculpted in 2008 for a British Museum exhibition.
Kate Moss was born on 16 January 1974 in Croydon, London, the daughter of Linda Rosina Moss (née Shepherd), a barmaid, and Peter Edward Moss, an airline employee, and raised in the Addiscombe and Sanderstead areas of the borough. She has a younger brother, Nick, and a half-sister named Lottie (Charlotte). Moss's parents divorced when she was 13. She attended Ridgeway Primary School and Riddlesdown High School (now Riddlesdown Collegiate) in Purley. She worked several local retail jobs in her early teens.
Moss was recruited as a model in 1988 at age 14 by Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm Management, at JFK Airport in New York, after a holiday in The Bahamas. Corinne Day shot black-and-white photographs of her, styled by Melanie Ward, for The Face when she was 16, in a shoot titled "The 3rd Summer of Love". Moss was presented as a young unknown, and Day described the pictures as "dirty realism" or "grunge".
Moss then featured in the Levi's campaign 'Levi's for Girls', with great success, set up by The Design Corporation and again shot by Corinne Day. A further shoot followed for The Face, by Tony Briggs, entitled "Haute Coiffure", In 1992, she appeared in a successful Calvin Klein campaign alongside Mark Whalberg, followed by her first solo campaign for the company in 1993. Moss went on to become the "anti-supermodel" of the 1990s in contrast to the models of the moment, such as Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell, who were known for their athletic appearance.
How Kate Moss makes money
In 2012, she came second on the Forbes top-earning models list, with estimated earnings of $9.2 million in one year. The contract was reportedly worth £4 million a year. The work sold at Christie's in 2005 for £3.93 million.
