"Modeling can be a bit brain damaging. Starting my own brand was what I needed to do. I only model if there are such good jobs that you don't want to say no to. All that dressing up makes me say, 'What do I want to wear?' and, 'What do I want to do with Topshop?' It all kind of leads into the other things"
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Kate Moss punctures the fantasy of modeling with a phrase that lands like gossip and diagnosis at once: "a bit brain damaging". Coming from fashion's most mythologized face, it works because it refuses the usual gratitude script. She frames the job not as glamorous labor but as a slow erosion of agency, a career built on being arranged, styled, and spoken for. The understatement ("a bit") is doing heavy lifting; it lets her critique the machine without sounding bitter, the way an insider can.
The pivot to "Starting my own brand" is less entrepreneurial pep talk than reclamation narrative. In Moss's world, the currency is taste, and she positions taste as something modeling both exploits and incubates. The subtext is control: when she models, it's only for "good jobs" she "can't say no to" - power described as selective participation, not constant availability. That's an image-management move, too; Moss turns scarcity into authority, the same logic luxury uses to justify itself.
The most revealing line is the one that sounds almost naive: "What do I want to wear?" After years of being a hanger for other people's ideas, desire becomes a radical question. Topshop, a mass-market brand she famously collaborated with, is the cultural context here: high fashion's muse stepping into the democratized retail pipeline. She suggests the industry didn't just consume her; it trained her to convert personal style into product, and to treat identity as a portfolio. The damage and the escape route are made of the same material.
The pivot to "Starting my own brand" is less entrepreneurial pep talk than reclamation narrative. In Moss's world, the currency is taste, and she positions taste as something modeling both exploits and incubates. The subtext is control: when she models, it's only for "good jobs" she "can't say no to" - power described as selective participation, not constant availability. That's an image-management move, too; Moss turns scarcity into authority, the same logic luxury uses to justify itself.
The most revealing line is the one that sounds almost naive: "What do I want to wear?" After years of being a hanger for other people's ideas, desire becomes a radical question. Topshop, a mass-market brand she famously collaborated with, is the cultural context here: high fashion's muse stepping into the democratized retail pipeline. She suggests the industry didn't just consume her; it trained her to convert personal style into product, and to treat identity as a portfolio. The damage and the escape route are made of the same material.
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| Topic | Entrepreneur |
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