1990
Katherine Ann Moss from Croydon was spotted by Storm model agency founder Sarah Doukas at JFK airport, as the 14-year-old and her dad returned from holiday in the Bahamas. Two years later, Corinne Day photographed the unknown teenager in Camber Sands for style bible the Face. Freckly, fresh-faced and wearing a feathered head-dress for a story titled “The 3rd summer of love”, Moss was surrounded by cover lines about Spike Island and daisy age rap. Day described the black-and-white pictures as “dirty realism” or “grunge”. They launched a career that was to usher in a new age of supermodels and popularise the “waif” look Photograph: The Face
1992
The Face shoot was seen by influential French art director Fabien Baron and Moss’s long relationship with Calvin Klein began. Her debut ad for the label saw Herb Ritts shoot her in LA with buff rapper Marky Mark (now reinvented as actor Mark Wahlberg). They became controversial images, prompting speculation about her weight and even drawing criticism from US president Bill Clinton, who would later speak out against “heroin chic”. Years later, Moss revealed: “Straddling this buff guy didn’t feel like me at all. I had a nervous breakdown, couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks and thought I was going to die” Photograph: PR
2002
Over her 25-year career, Moss has been a muse to designers, musicians and artists alike. The late Lucian Freud’s portrait of her – naked, reclining and pregnant with daughter Lila Grace – took nine months to complete and was sold at auction for £3.9m. Freud also inked a tattoo of two tiny swallows on Moss’s lower back. In 2008, YBA Marc Quinn made an 18-carat, 50kg, £1.5m gold sculpture of the woman he called “the ideal beauty of the moment”. Entitled Siren, it was unveiled at the British Museum and declared “the largest gold statue since ancient Egypt” Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters
2004
La Moss’s birthday bashes are legendary and rarely what you’d call low-key. Her 21st at LA’s Viper Room saw boyfriend Johnny Depp perform with Michael Hutchence, while Jason Donovan was rushed to hospital after a cocaine binge. Her 33rd was a £5,000 booze blitz with Pete Doherty. Her 35th? A four-day medieval bender. Best of the bunch was her decadent 30th a decade ago, themed around F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Beautiful and the Damned. Mossy sported big curls, wore midnight-blue sequins and the raucous session was reputed to have climaxed in a star-studded orgy in the presidential suite at Claridge’s. Hey, whose 30th doesn’t? Photograph: CHAPMAN/REX/CHAPMAN/REX
2005
Moss is a regular at Worthy Farm but the 2005 event – headlined by the White Stripes and Coldplay – saw her single-handedly invent festival fashion. She was there to cheer on Pete Doherty’s ropey band Babyshambles and her look – hot pants, waistcoat and wellies, accessorised with sunglasses, wristbands, fag and booze cup – made mud chic; it , spawned imitators such as Sienna Miller and Alexa Chung, and is still widely copied every summer. Hunter wellies owe Moss a huge debt: previously a rather horsey heritage brand, the rubber rain boots have since become firm fashion favourites, donned by city dwellers at the first sign of drizzle Photograph: MJ Kim/Getty Images
2006
The “cocaine Kate” drug scandal lost Moss a number of big-name contracts. After she’d kept a low profile for six months, friend and longtime collaborator Alexander McQueen put her back on the catwalk – as a state-of-the-art hologram. There was a puff of white smoke and her ghostly apparition materialised inside a glass pyramid, wearing an extravagantly ruffled gown while floating in dream-like slow motion. At the show’s finale, McQueen took his bow in a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: “We love you, Kate.” She was soon landing A-list jobs again. All was forgiven by the fickle world of fashion Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
2006
Moss might have an estimated wealth of £42m but she went back to her humble roots for her guest spot in a Little Britain sketch for Comic Relief. Live at Hammersmith Apollo, the game-for-a-laugh clothes-horse donned a Kappa tracksuit and scrunchie to play the twin sister of Matt Lucas creation Vicky “no but yeah but shut up” Pollard. The skit saw the normally sphinx-like Moss announce: “Awright? Pollard sistas in the house.” She then sagely observed that she was “the easy one… a total slag” who would “give you a gob job for a packet of Quavers”. You don’t get that from Claudia Schiffer Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images
2011
Moss retired from regular catwalk work a decade ago but when she does take a rare trip down the runway, she makes sure it’s memorable. She closed Louis Vuitton’s fetish-themed AW11 Paris show by stomping in a black body, opera mask, leather gloves and bondage boots, while insouciantly puffing on a Marlboro and theatrically blowing out smoke. It was doubly transgressive, flouting not just the smoking ban but also national No Smoking Day. Part dinner lady, part dominatrix, there's a nod to Charlotte Rampling in The Night Porter Photograph: Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage
2012
The London 2012 wrap party was somewhat overshadowed by Danny Boyle’s opening spectacular but Moss still took gold. In a segment celebrating UK fashion, nine home-grown supermodels appeared from behind giant billboards bearing their images, then strutted across a giant Union flag in clothes by British designers, soundtracked by David Bowie. Wearing a mermaid-like, gold-encrusted gown by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Moss led the posse of Naomi Campbell, Lily Cole, Lily Donaldson, Jourdan Dunn, Karen Elson, Georgia May Jagger, Stella Tennant and token bloke David Gandy. Naturally, Twitter lit up with wags wondering if Moss would pass an IOC drugs test Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
2013
The latest entry in the Kate Moss canon came last month. To celebrate her milestone birthday and Playboy’s 60th anniversary edition, she posed in the classic bunny outfit: a high-cut corset, silky ears, white collar, cuffs and bobtail. Shot by fashion duo Mert & Marcus, the eagerly awaited 18-page pictorial put a couture spin on Hugh Hefner’s tired brand, making Playboy seem sophisticated, relevant and actually sexy for the first time in yonks. The images have already been reproduced on posters and a Marc Jacobs T-shirt. The message from team Moss was clear: I might be 40 but I’ve still got it Photograph: Playboy
