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Daily Inspiration Quote by Kate Moss

"I was 14 when I started modeling. At the end of that first day my mum said, If you want to do this, you're on your own because I'm not traipsing around London ever again like that. It's a nightmare"

About this Quote

Kate Moss turns the origin story of a supermodel into something stubbornly unglamorous: a 14-year-old kid, a long first day, and a mother who hits her limit. The line lands because it punctures the mythology that fashion prefers - effortless discovery, enchanted ascent - and replaces it with logistics, exhaustion, and parental boundaries. "Traipsing around London" is doing a lot of work: it conjures not catwalk lights but buses, waiting rooms, last-minute directions, the low-grade grind that underwrites every "dream" industry.

The intent is disarming candor, but also a quiet flex. Moss frames success as something she earned by absorbing adult inconvenience early, not by being endlessly cosseted. Her mum's blunt ultimatum functions like a rite of passage: if you want the spotlight, you carry the bags too. It's a rare acknowledgment of the family labor behind child work, especially in an industry built on the aesthetics of youth while offloading the responsibility onto the young.

The subtext is sharper: modeling doesn't just take your image, it takes your time, your caregivers' time, your childhood. Calling it "a nightmare" isn't melodrama; it's a critique of the machine that normalizes minors navigating adult spaces, often with minimal protection. Coming from Moss - whose career became shorthand for a whole era's cool - the anti-fairy-tale framing reads like a corrective. The legend begins not with destiny, but with a parent saying: I'm not doing this for you.

Quote Details

TopicMother
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Moss, Kate. (2026, January 16). I was 14 when I started modeling. At the end of that first day my mum said, If you want to do this, you're on your own because I'm not traipsing around London ever again like that. It's a nightmare. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-14-when-i-started-modeling-at-the-end-of-95836/

Chicago Style
Moss, Kate. "I was 14 when I started modeling. At the end of that first day my mum said, If you want to do this, you're on your own because I'm not traipsing around London ever again like that. It's a nightmare." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-14-when-i-started-modeling-at-the-end-of-95836/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was 14 when I started modeling. At the end of that first day my mum said, If you want to do this, you're on your own because I'm not traipsing around London ever again like that. It's a nightmare." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-14-when-i-started-modeling-at-the-end-of-95836/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Kate Moss on Starting Modeling at 14
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About the Author

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Kate Moss (born January 16, 1974) is a Model from England.

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