So to the Lawrence Elkin Gallery on New Compton Street on a Saturday afternoon to see a blink-and-you'll-miss-it exhibition of David Ross' photographic prints of the then-unknown Kate Moss in her first photo shoot.
Kate Moss represents a form of 'stardom' that in modern culture is, at the very least, anachronistic; and more accurately, almost entirely defunct. Her appeal and place within the cultural landscape harks back to someone like Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn. She is levitated voodoo-like above the snake-pit of 'celebrity' by virtue of an enigmatic allure which in turn casts the veil of 'icon' across her shoulders.
By remaining both imagistically ubiquitous yet personally aloof, we know comparatively little about Kate Moss, and hence she retains the appealing sense of mystery that is such scant currency in the over-exposed market of 21st century celebrity. Within this realm we are all complicit to a bizarre self-delusion that our lives are somehow proxy to those of the rich and famous; a misconception desperately cultivated by celebrities in an effort at demonstrating their 'humanity' at any opportunity that might ensure a positive correlation with publicity and the maintenance of their own 'brand'.
The exhibition's shots depict Moss as a whey-faced 14-year-old, years before the murky cloud of 'heroin chic' and anorexia smears began to form above her early fame. Her instantly-recognisable features smoulder with a fertile compound of innocence and self-awareness, naivete and shrewdity; these dichotomies are visible in every frame. There is an undeniably 'Lolita'-like quality to these shots, insofar as her latent sexuality and intrigue dance the precarious waltz between the aforementioned dichotomies.
Not only in physical terms - at one glance appearing disarmingly plain and ordinary, at the next almost overpoweringly sensual - but also in terms of appearing to possess that integral cynicism and business sense that would sustain her status as arguably the world's most recognisable model. You get the impression that even at age 14 she had mapped the trajectory of her own future from that point on.
The key to her longevity, aside from her versatility as a model, is the fact of her enigmatic presence in the cultural sphere that enables us all to import our own narratives or imaginations onto her, in much the same way as people become imaginatively transfixed by, and invested in, Marilyn Monroe.
For my own part, I have used Moss as a means of subversive imagery in my novel 'Digital' and a couple of years ago in a rather crude 3-part short story 'Sex Objects of the World Unite' in which she makes the ultimate protestation against the mass media glare by self-immolating on a catwalk a la the Tibetan monks.
Since then though I rather think the crux of the ‘protest’ idea to be misguided. As Moss’ image remains omnipresent and apparently age-less she appeals to the self-flagellating paranoia lying within the collective psyche as to the passage of time taking its inexorable toll. By embodying that delusional ‘Pan-like’ fantasy towards which society conditions us all to submit, wilfully or otherwise, she is able to elevate herself above the public’s attempts at humanising her through the medium of scandal.
As such she transcends the fickle carousel of celebrity, in which we idolise and emulate until the wave of popular affection reaches its critical mass, breaking back into denigration as a means of illuminating the foibles and human weaknesses that misguidedly convince and reassure us once again of their being ‘just like us’.
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