Kate Moss has revealed that after becoming one of the faces of the "heroin chic" aesthetic that was popular in the '90s, parents would approach her on the street and accuse her of promoting eating disorders.
Pale skin, dark under-eye bags and emaciated features—all characteristics linked to heroin or other drug abuse—were the hallmarks of the "heroin chic" look. This skeletal look served as the inspiration for Calvin Klein's 1993 Obsession perfume commercial starring Moss. The look also gained popularity after a then 19-year-old Moss posed in lingerie for the June 1993 issue of Vogue.
While the trend eventually subsided, Moss discussed the popular aesthetic and the abuse she faced in the Disney+ docuseries In Vogue: The 90s, which will be able to be streamed on the platform from Friday, September 13.
Newsweek emailed a spokesperson for Moss for comment on Monday.
"Parents would come up to me and say, 'My daughter's anorexic.' It was awful," the supermodel said.
"I think because I was just skinny, and people weren't used to seeing skinny. But if I'd been more buxom, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. It's just that my body shape was different from the models before me."
Discussing the 1993 Vogue shoot, Moss said she felt "really good," adding: "The whole shoot, I felt really comfortable, I loved creating the images. You know, it wasn't glamorous. It was in my flat in London. Our bedroom was like a bedsit. That's the kind of fashion I liked. It was much simpler."
While Moss may have enjoyed the experience, fashion editor Catherine Kasterine told the documentary that the public was "appalled."
"Immediately, the pictures were completely vilified and slammed. Perhaps we'd underestimated how that look had in our minds been quite normal," she explained.
Vogue editor Anna Wintour also acknowledged that the undernourished-looking models "made people uncomfortable."
"Many of us at Vogue worried about heroin chic or anorexia, all the things that are associated with that look. It got to such a fever pitch. I remember physically being in the White House when the Clinton administration took the issue on," she said.
In May 1997, the president spoke at the White House to draft a plan to control the trafficking and use of illegal drugs. The contentious fashion industry trend was criticized by Clinton, who accused the fashion industry of making heroin seem ''glamorous, sexy and cool.''
''American fashion has been an enormous source of creativity and beauty and art and, frankly, economic prosperity for the United States we should all value and respect that," Clinton said, per The New York Times.
"But the glorification of heroin is not creative, it's destructive. It's not beautiful, it is ugly. This is not about art, it's about life and death. And glorifying death is not good for any society."
In the documentary, Moss also discussed the moment she sparked controversy in 1992 for posing topless with Mark Wahlberg in an advert for Calvin Klein jeans.
"It was quite overwhelming. I was 18, you know, he was a big superstar rapper, and I still felt like I was just a girl from Croydon. They asked me to be topless. It was just a lot of people on set, a lot of men. I did feel vulnerable," she said.
This isn't the first time that Moss, who was discovered at the age of 14, has spoken publicly about the negative aspects of her time spent in the modeling industry.
In a rare interview with Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs in 2022, the model shared multiple stories of abuse from early in her career. She recounted a narrow escape at the age of 15, where a male photographer pressured her to go topless. Taking place in 1988, the shoot was one of Moss's first modeling jobs.
"I had a horrible experience with a bra catalog," she said. "I was only 15 and he said, 'take your top off' and I was really shy and I could feel there was something wrong and I got my stuff and ran away."
Although she credited the shoot with "sharpening her instincts," it wasn't the only harrowing incident in her career. At the age of 16, Moss shot the Face magazine cover that would make her a star. Despite being friends with photographer Corinne Day, Moss was asked to pose topless once again, this time bursting into tears.
She recalled: "[Day] would say, 'If you don't take your top off, I'm not going to book you for Elle.' And I would cry. It's painful."
Shot at Camber Sands beach in Sussex, U.K., Moss told Laverne that she is too traumatized to revisit the location.
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