“This whole campaign is about looking into the experience of being a woman,” says Donna Karan of her new advertising campaign starring the world’s most famous model. “With Kate, you get the feeling that there’s so much more to her than just what you see.”
Indeed, Kate Moss is a woman with a past and there’s not much that we don’t know about that past. Or is there? Fashion’s most famous pairing, photographers Mert and Marcus, have conjured Moss into a dream of steamy, seductive Cuba, complete with dusty streets, tango bars and ancient cars. There’s an aura of mystique here, something Moss is good at throwing out. But somehow there’s a sense that this is the real deal – a woman at the height of her powers, having fun. The clothes, gorgeous though they are, are incidental – this is a good thing.
“It’s not about fashion per se, it’s about adventure,” says Karan. “This is a journey into raw, sexy Cuba. When you see these pictures, you want to dance and have a great time.” This is vintage Moss in both senses of the word: she has never looked better, but she is undoubtedly older, possibly wiser and very definitely sexier.
You could say the same of Karan, who in fashion speak is an industry veteran of some 24 years. That hasn’t stopped her innovating tirelessly: from her initial “seven easy pieces” wardrobe to her fragrances, home line and now her newest baby, handbags, Karan has always moved with or ahead of the times. She is driven not by commerce (she sold her company to LVMH in 2001 for $643 million); rather she is a “seeker”, travelling the globe in search of inspiration. “It’s all my woo-woo stuff,” she confides, “but I really believe in it.” So much so that Karan, who credits yoga and meditation for helping her to come to terms with the death of her husband, sculptor Stephan Weiss, in 2001, has a new project – Urban Zen – designed to promote wellbeing, preserve cultures and empower children. The initiative is run from Weiss’s old studio in New York.
Karan says she doesn’t want her mission to detract from the business. But after some initial caginess – “Designing is my job” – she opens up. “I thought, I can’t sit back and not have people know stuff – about everything from what’s happening in Tibet to how Eastern medicine can complement Western medicine, and how we can empower children to be their best,” she says. So far, the initiative has some pretty impressive names on its roster, from Christy Turlington to the scholar Professor Robert Thurman and actor Michael J. Fox. What made Karan proudest, though, was the presence of the Dalai Lama in her late husband’s studio. “I just couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “It was an incredible moment.”