Pictures have emerged of a delicately aged Kate Moss in a never-before-seen photo shoot from the year 1988. Today a household name in fashion, with her net worth estimated at over $55 million, these images portray a side of the model unseen by the world… Until now.
Film Reel. Image Credit: Owen Scarbiena
In her first-ever shoot for modelling agency Storm, Moss, aged 14, poses for photographer Owen Scarbiena with an innocent, flawless and effortlessly elegant body. At the time, none had predicted that Moss would go on to become arguably the most photographed woman in fashion across the last few decades. The 28-year dormant images are now emerging thanks to an exhibition titled ‘Kate Moss – Unseen’, curated at the Zebra One Gallery in Hampstead, England, in the midst of London Fashion Week, 2016.
In an interview for Vogue Magazine, photographer Scarbiena reminisces of Moss’s “…unimposing, innocent, fresh, unaffected and…nymph-like beauty” that left a lasting impression on him throughout his career.
“I loved the way that she sat for me in that shoot, because she demonstrated that she had no pre-conceived ideas about how models are supposed to pose or stand. I simply let her be herself and directed her by telling her stories or asking her to imagine certain scenarios, and then shot around her. She was so fresh and natural, with a temperament that made that first shoot fun and exciting for us both.”
When asked why the images had been in hiding for nearly three decades, Scarbiena told Vogue,
“I had a few images from the project in my portfolio for a while and gradually they were replaced with newer work. The black-and-white images from the shoot had been processed, but were never used, so I stored them away, partly forgotten, until now.”
The images reveal the stripped-back, unspoiled beauty of Moss in the years before being swept-up into the whirlwind modelling career that she continues today. First discovered in 1988 at JFK Airport by Storm Models’ lead agent Sarah Doukas, Moss went on to dominate the modelling world from the 90’s and onward. Leading runway shows in London, Paris, Milan and New York, acting as the poster girl for make-up brand Rimmel and appearing on the covers of Vogue, Playboy, Vanity Fair and countless other magazines are just a few examples of a deluge of accomplishments in her field.
Have a look at a sampling of the vintage images that dawned her monumental career…