Kate Moss on Johnny, Nudity & 'Heroin Chic'

Kate Moss is my favourite model, always has been. This is a beautiful shoot by Mert & Marcus for Vanity Fair December is accompanied by a very revealing article from the usually guarded & reticent Kate.

On her early modeling years: “I had a nervous breakdown when I was 17 or 18, when I had to go and work with Marky Mark and Herb Ritts,” she says. “It didn’t feel like me at all. I felt really bad about straddling this buff guy. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks. I thought I was going to die. I went to the doctor, and he said, ‘I’ll give you some Valium,’ and Francesca Sorrenti, thank God, said, ‘You’re not taking that.’ It was just anxiety."

Kate Moss & Mark Wahlberg for Calvin Klein by Mario Sorrenti, 1992

"Nobody takes care of you mentally. There’s a massive pressure to do what you have to do. I was really little, and I was going to work with Steven Meisel. It was just really weird—a stretch limo coming to pick you up from work. I didn’t like it. But it was work, and I had to do it"

Kate Moss by Corinne Day for FACE Magazine, 1990

"Remembering her now classic photo shoot with Corinne Day for The Face, Moss says, “I see a 16-year-old now, and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird. But they were like, If you don’t do it, then we’re not going to book you again. So I’d lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it. I never felt very comfortable about it. There’s a lot of boobs. I hated my boobs! Because I was flat-chested. And I had a big mole on one. That picture of me running down the beach—I’ll never forget doing that, because I made the hairdresser, who was the only man on the shoot, turn his back.”

 Kate Moss & Carla Bruni by Patrick Demarchelier, 1993

On her being labeled the poster girl for the 90's emaciated look, 'Heroin Chic': "I had never even taken heroin - it was nothing to do with me at all," said Moss. "I think [stylist] Corinne Day - she wasn't on heroin, but always loved that Lou Reed song, that whole glamorizing the squat, white-and-black and sparse and thin, and girls with dark eyes. She loved that look. I was thin, but that's because I was doing shows, working really hard. At that time I was staying at a B&B in Milan, and you'd get home from work and there was no food. You'd get to work in the morning, there was no food. Nobody took you out for lunch when I started. Carla Bruni took me out for lunch once. She was really nice. Otherwise, you don't get fed."

Kate and Johnny Depp, 1994, Annie Leibowitz

Kate & Johnny by François-Marie Banier

On her relationship with Johnny Depp: "He taught me a lot about fame. He told me 'never complain, never explain'. That's why I don't use Twitter and things like that. I don't want people to know what is true all the time and that's what keeps the mystery...There's nobody that's ever really been able to take care of me. Johnny did for a bit. I believed what he said. Like if I said: 'What do I do?' - he'd tell me. And that's what I missed when I left. I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust," he said. "It was a nightmare - years and years of crying. Oh, the tears." (See more on Kate & Johnny here).

  Kate & John Galliano, 1993

 John & Kate at her wedding, July 2011

On her friend John Galliano: “On my wedding day, I’m like freaking out, obviously. ‘You’ve got to give me a character.’ And [Galliano] said, ‘You have a secret—you are the last of the English roses. Hide under that veil. When he lifts it, he’s going to see your wanton past!’” (See more pics from Kate's wedding day here). 

Following are the fab pictures from the Vanity Fair shoot of Kate now, a married Mum of 38 and still looking absolutely amazing. Even in these days of Photoshop, you can't fake bone structure, longevity and photogenicity!