Kiss me, Kate!
Mario Testino's tribute to his greatest muse
The unseen Kate: the most intimate photos of today's biggest international fashion icon by the fashion world's favorite photographer. Limited to 1,500 copies, each numbered and signed by the artist.
Mario Testino is recognised as the ultimate fashion photographer of his generation but his pictures of Kate Moss transcend fashion. The consequence of two decades of extraordinary friendship, and phenomenal glamour, this iconic collaboration is an intimate insight into the lives and minds of two of the world’s definitive style leaders.
Mario says “I met Kate very early on. Shortly after her first Galliano show I went backstage to congratulate her, only to find her crying: she was disappointed that she had only been given one outfit to model in the show. My answer to her was this: ‘In life there are perfumes and colognes. You need to use lots of cologne as the scent fades away; with a perfume you just use a drop and it lasts all night. You are a perfume, you will go on and on.’ Little did I know just how true that would become! And that I had made a friend for life.”
In a rare glimpse into the mind of one of the industry’s most private figures, Kate Moss also gives her insights into her life with the celebrated photographer, expanding on both their professional and personal relationship.
“Mario took me to a new level of glamour. I don’t think anybody had seen me as any kind of sexy model before he did. He was the one that transformed me. Before him I was just a grungy girl, but he saw me differently. He was the first to say ‘Oh, she’s quite sexy. I’ve seen her out! I know she’s not just that grungy girl.’ He’d seen me in a pair of heels, getting glamorous – and he was the first to start taking pictures of me in that way. He changed the way people thought about me as a model, for sure. Later other people started working with me in that way, but he was the first.”
This book catalogues the journey of one of fashion’s most creative collaborations, from early days backstage at the shows to behind-the-scenes glimpses of the ground-breaking editorials they continue to produce for the world’s most respected magazines. Many photographs have been chosen from Testino’s private archive and are published here for the first time.
