The anti-fashion fashion of Kate and Johnny.
May 3, 2015This fashion squared couple combo, like the cherry blossom in spring, only lasted a relatively short time but for those four fleeting years, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp’s love affair was the epitome of grunge cool.
Coupledom Cool Kate Moss and Johnny Depp – the brief but crazy affair
The world’s darlings
At the time of meeting in New York in 1994, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp already had shimmering stardom attached to their names; but it is only when they got together that the world went mad for the young, fresh-faced, carefree couple.
This was Kate before the hardcore vodka and coke binges, Johnny before he became a swashbuckling piratic caricature of his young self. Theirs was a palpable love affair, built on eccentricity, rebelliousness but somehow touchingly and reassuringly innocent as well.
One of the first of the unusual supermodels
Kate was discovered when she was only 14. A skinny, gawky looking teen was a complete contrast to the curvy, bronzed, healthy looking supermodels of the day.
Thanks to Corinne Day, her career was launched with a striking cover on The Face in 1990, and it took a whole new international dimension with the CK ads two years later, when her stripped bare looks made her stand out from the sea of overly polished models and made her into a grunge princess of the 1990s.
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp – A poet and movie star
When she met Depp in 1994 he was – according to the biographer Maureen Callahan in her book Champagne Supernovas – “the punk-rock Beat poet who just happened to become a movie star”.
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp – The epitome of rock’n’roll
Together they seemed bent on proving that their accidental lives in the spotlight were nothing to do with their considerable talents, but a sum total of all the rock’n’roll binges of the past century.
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp – A stylish couple
And the fashion? Oh, the FASHION! When was it not absurdly cool?
During the photo shoots when they wore next to nothing, Kate and Johnny still managed to exude style.
Dirty yet cute
When they’re quite clearly out of their young heads (and we should know better than to approve), they still look like two slightly stinky cuddly puppies.
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp – Fresh faced for the red carpet
At premieres, Kate’s barely made up face contrasts with her slinky grown-up gowns and bling. Johnny’s matted hair, covered by a beanie, gives the Cobainesque air of trouble and cheekiness.
Minimal attire
What they wore was nearly always minimal, attuned to the moment and accompanied with dewy complexion that only youth and vodka can bring.
Doomed
Like every fairy tale, theirs was a doomed affair. The couple broke up after the premiere of Depp’s directorial debut The Brave, in 1997, allegedly because he could not take the strain of partying any longer. Whatever; no-one said that movie stars make responsible partners.
Kate in Primrose Hill
The media, which followed their every step while they were together, now followed Kate’s public decline: the coke parties and orgies with the Primrose Hill set, the relationship with Pete Doherty – every non-work photograph showed pallor and strain, but on every work image she glowed as ever before.
Still hot today
They both survived the 1990s, did some great and some not so great projects and went on to marry seemingly stable partners. Today, Kate Moss is by far the most defining model of our times.
Johnny Depp did not mature so well in spite of a number of interesting projects – and his latest marriage to actress Amber Heard is certainly showing him in the light that is more Gramps than grunge.
However, the four years during which the world looked up to Kate Moss and Johnny Depp’s youthful, broken, restless love affair were the years that beautifully and madly drunk away the 20th century.
The anti-fashion fashion of Kate and Johnny.
Book entitled Past and Present by Francois-Marie Banier, 1994.
Young Kate.
Kate Moss in CK in the 1990s.
The King and Queen of Grunge.
Britpop princess.
Timelessly stylish.
Not even this grandad look can make Depp look bad.
The Primrose Hill Kate.
Kate Moss
Johnny Depp.
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, The epitome of the 90s.
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