LUISA WORLD
Just Kids

Enter “Kate”, an intimate collection of never-before-published photographs of Kate Moss, by Mario Sorrenti

Rewind a bit, back to the nineties. As this season continues to celebrate the style and aesthetics of this very distinctive era, with every brand paying its own, unique tribute, in comes the (role) model that ruled a whole generation of fashion, music and attitude. In the early 1990s, before being established as the powerhouse she is today, Kate Moss was the personification of the grunge aesthetic, which influenced a generation of designers, photographers, editors, and models, transforming the fashion industry.

“Kate” is a collection of fifty portraits of a young Kate Moss on the brink of international supermodel-stardom, taken nearly 25 years ago by her then boyfriend, photographer Mario Sorrenti: “I remember sitting next to her and feeling like my heart was going to stop; her beauty overwhelmed me” writes Sorrenti in the  short introductory text in which he explains
how the two met during a modeling job in London in 1991.

The two fell in love and spent the next two years together, travelling and working. She became his muse—following in a long line of artist-muse relationships like Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, and Irving Penn and Lisa Fonssagrives—and he captured her during moments of unguarded intimacy on trips, by the beach, or at home in London.This collection of photographs went on to be more than a private album—it became the inspiration for Moss’s career breakthrough. In 1993, Calvin Klein was so struck with Sorrenti’s diaries that the photographs became the reference for the famous Obsession perfume campaign, marking a transformative moment in both of their careers. The rest is fashion history…

Dennis Freedman, founding Creative Director of W magazine, edited the volume closely with Sorrenti and almost all the featured images have never been seen or published before. “Kate” is presented in an elegant gray cloth-covered clamshell box with beautiful tritone reproductions. Phaidon editions will also release a limited edition of the book complete with a signed photograph of Moss by Sorrenti.