Everybody likes looking at Kate Moss, don’t they? Especially when she’s doing her best Madonna and child, complete with her IRL 13-year-old daughter Lila Grace, on the cover of Vogue Italia. This alone will blow the minds of Moss geeks everywhere, who will no doubt be scrutinising the teenager for resemblance to her mother in micro-detail as we speak. They will also appreciate the detail that the picture is shot by Mario Sorrenti, Kate’s one-time boyfriend, who took images of her naked – bottom up, on a sofa – as a teenager for Calvin Klein. While you could say there’s a certain circling the square element there, this image is rather more chaste, with mother and child dressed in stretchy Versace knitwear. The intertwined pose, tousled hair and natural faces have a classicism about them – it’s all very da Vinci – and the “Love” tag plays that whole “I might be a supermodel with a count consort but I’m a mum as well” card. Lila Grace, who apparently advises Kate on what to wear, holds her own with one of those wide-eyed stares at which teenagers excel(she has had practice - see the mother and daughter portrait in British Vogue’s centenary issue). And there’s a subtle, very current power play in what Moss wears. See the cold-shoulder dress, the style that’s now associated with Hillary Clinton and her Donna Karan design, worn for a White House portrait in 1993. Whether or not that’s Moss’s way of sartorially supporting the presidential candidate is unknown. But, like the rest of the model’s antics – from appearing in the film version of Absolutely Fabulous to teaching Lila Grace how to walk like a 90s model – actions generally speak louder than words.
