Everybody Loves Kate....But Why?
To continue the vaguely pop-culture train of thought started earlier in the Blog with my post about Pete Doherty, I now move to consider his muse, the model Kate Moss. To get straight to the point- why does the nation love her so? She is drug-tainted, tainted by association with scurrilous men, a seemingly often absentee mother to her put-upon toddler daughter, and yet nothing, it seems, can dent her popularity.
In the last year, Kate has been "exposed" as a user of hard drugs in the Tabloids (though the Police "asked her a few questions", it seemed entering a munti-million dollar rehab clinic was deemed hardship enough for her to avoid any trouble). She has been one half of the most ludicrously on-off celebrity relationship in recent memory, with a man for whom public sympathy seems to have run almost dry; yet for Kate, it does not.
Throughout the whole tabloid storm of the past year, Kate Moss attracted, in real terms, very little publicity for herself that turned out to be genuinely negative. She went through rehab (a luxury hardly available to your average run-of-the-mill Council Estate addict) and immediately then was painted as a Great British Survivor. And trebled her income; all those snooty labels that dropped her when the story broke were replaced in a piranha feeding frenzy for her face to adorn new and exciting products to be marketed.
I was fortunate enough to catch a short feature on TV in the last couple of weeks which dealt with exactly this issue; and the guests they had on to discuss it were illuminating in themselves. Three sycophantic "fashion-types"- a stylist, a photographer, and...well, probably another "stylist"... sat around nodding sagely discussing with the venerable hosts, Richard and Judy, how Kate inspires loyalty in her friends, and commenting on how none of her friends would ever discuss her in the public domain.
Exactly-which tells us that these three wise folks aren't Kate's friends, but people who may have met her once or twice; they probably know little more about her than we do. One of these three fashion oracles proudly, and with the air of a fashion guru, assured us that Kate had told him several years earlier that she never did any drugs harder than marijuana. Or maybe he'd seen in on a documentary. Or heard it second-hand... you get the idea. Their presence there did illustrate the point that none of Kate's friends would go behind her back in the public doman, which was a bonus- but the feature came rather unstuck when trying to show us "the real Kate Moss". There simply isn't one- she doesn't say anything, except through publicists. She goes about her daily business, suspicous or otherwise, with an air of mystery that is constantly cultivated by tabloid photos speculating, and she herself saying (and therefore confirming) nothing.
She knows that she is a model; operating in the most shallow of worlds, where face-value IS everything, and evidence substance or moral fibre can do little more than put people off. By stayling silent almost all of her career, she has managed to ingratiate herself as the fashion muse of a generation; any female between the age of 12 and 32 seems obliged to adore her, never stopping to criticise her decisions or attitudes. She knows her primary function is as a clothes horse, and style icon. For those twin roles, she doesn't need to speak.
She spoke once, a long time ago, in a TV Programme Model Behaviour, in her reassuringly normal Croydon accent, giggly and youthful. Now she speaks as the face of Virgin Mobile, with a rather more polished and artificial accent- again, to put people off would be a tragedy in a career like hers- and in between, even in the press, her public statements have been mostly limited to agents and acquaintances.
There is probably not a male equivalent, because it is only a small circle of manhood that considers fashion in the same exalted manner as the female population at large does; I would guess she is a female-only phenomenon. Few males would be able to keep their mouth shut for quite so long, even if they were convinced it was for the best; Kate Moss has become the master of being in the public eye without seeming like she totally wants to be.
She is, paradoxically, one of the most recognisable faces on the Earth, and at the same time a blank canvas; and, it seems, a commercial genius.
In the last year, Kate has been "exposed" as a user of hard drugs in the Tabloids (though the Police "asked her a few questions", it seemed entering a munti-million dollar rehab clinic was deemed hardship enough for her to avoid any trouble). She has been one half of the most ludicrously on-off celebrity relationship in recent memory, with a man for whom public sympathy seems to have run almost dry; yet for Kate, it does not.
Throughout the whole tabloid storm of the past year, Kate Moss attracted, in real terms, very little publicity for herself that turned out to be genuinely negative. She went through rehab (a luxury hardly available to your average run-of-the-mill Council Estate addict) and immediately then was painted as a Great British Survivor. And trebled her income; all those snooty labels that dropped her when the story broke were replaced in a piranha feeding frenzy for her face to adorn new and exciting products to be marketed.
I was fortunate enough to catch a short feature on TV in the last couple of weeks which dealt with exactly this issue; and the guests they had on to discuss it were illuminating in themselves. Three sycophantic "fashion-types"- a stylist, a photographer, and...well, probably another "stylist"... sat around nodding sagely discussing with the venerable hosts, Richard and Judy, how Kate inspires loyalty in her friends, and commenting on how none of her friends would ever discuss her in the public domain.
Exactly-which tells us that these three wise folks aren't Kate's friends, but people who may have met her once or twice; they probably know little more about her than we do. One of these three fashion oracles proudly, and with the air of a fashion guru, assured us that Kate had told him several years earlier that she never did any drugs harder than marijuana. Or maybe he'd seen in on a documentary. Or heard it second-hand... you get the idea. Their presence there did illustrate the point that none of Kate's friends would go behind her back in the public doman, which was a bonus- but the feature came rather unstuck when trying to show us "the real Kate Moss". There simply isn't one- she doesn't say anything, except through publicists. She goes about her daily business, suspicous or otherwise, with an air of mystery that is constantly cultivated by tabloid photos speculating, and she herself saying (and therefore confirming) nothing.
She knows that she is a model; operating in the most shallow of worlds, where face-value IS everything, and evidence substance or moral fibre can do little more than put people off. By stayling silent almost all of her career, she has managed to ingratiate herself as the fashion muse of a generation; any female between the age of 12 and 32 seems obliged to adore her, never stopping to criticise her decisions or attitudes. She knows her primary function is as a clothes horse, and style icon. For those twin roles, she doesn't need to speak.
She spoke once, a long time ago, in a TV Programme Model Behaviour, in her reassuringly normal Croydon accent, giggly and youthful. Now she speaks as the face of Virgin Mobile, with a rather more polished and artificial accent- again, to put people off would be a tragedy in a career like hers- and in between, even in the press, her public statements have been mostly limited to agents and acquaintances.
There is probably not a male equivalent, because it is only a small circle of manhood that considers fashion in the same exalted manner as the female population at large does; I would guess she is a female-only phenomenon. Few males would be able to keep their mouth shut for quite so long, even if they were convinced it was for the best; Kate Moss has become the master of being in the public eye without seeming like she totally wants to be.
She is, paradoxically, one of the most recognisable faces on the Earth, and at the same time a blank canvas; and, it seems, a commercial genius.
Labels: Pop Culture
posted by Matt at 10:48 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home