Kate Moss, Pitiable Tabloid Target

by Zoe Strimpel
Sun, 9 Mar 2008 at 7:34 PM

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Not that she needs it, but it's hard to live in London just now and not feel some sympathy for Kate Moss. The tabloids have her in their teeth and won't let go. She lived down the cocaine pictures in 2005 with relative ease, in part because the press allowed her to. Rather than ultimately damaging her career, after breaking the story in the first place, the papers endowed her with mystique and a veneer of unprecedented resilience. Now, though, the tabloids are dogging her evenings out, which, recently, have included consecutive nights in the pub with mates. For some reason, this is seen as cause to hate her, though the everyday Britishness and humbleness of such entertainment could be reason to love her. But no: Ms. Moss is reported to look haggard and unhealthy (the pictures don't give this impression), and thus to be morally pernicious. Where, the underlying question seems to be, is Lila Grace, her daughter, in all this?

Grist for the mill of disapproval is the model Agyness Deyn, real name Laura Hollins, who makes for a convenient new and improved Kate Moss figure. "Kate Moss boozes away for the fourth night in a row as Agyness her fresh-faced successor celebrates," screamed a headline in the Evening Standard on Friday. "Agyness Deyn lived the high life at a ritzy event in Marylebone last night, while a haggard looking Kate Moss had a low-key time at a West London pub," it sniggered. The paper praised Ms. Deyn's "clean living." Surely this marks a shift in expectations: Models are no longer to be the transgressive counterparts to rock stars. Now, it appears, they are to be squeaky-clean examples of healthy living and paragons of virtue. How dull.

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