H&M, Hypocrisy and La Moss

We live in an intellectually-challenged age of doublethink and political scapegoats, of public shamings and media trials, and now we have our latest martyr - Kate Moss.















In my reasoned and scholarly analysis of Kate's downfall, I will try to put aside the rather childish and embarassing fact that I was transfixed when, as a 16 year old, I first saw her in the pages of The Face (she was 16 too). I'll also add the disclaimer that, while I have nothing but disdain for celebrities who are famous for nothing, I make an exception for Kate because she is to my generation what the heart-stoppingly, iconically beautiful Jean Shrimpton was to the sixties. Add to this the earthy, shabby, potty-mouthed, eminently fallible (but never fragile) South London everygirl image, and there is something irresistible about her - to me anyway. So what if she's more likely to be caught peeling herself off the floor of some upmarket nightclub than leaving yoga or the therapist's? Back in my youthful day, so was I (though perhaps the nightclub was not what you’d call ‘upmarket’)!. And, morons, she's a model, not a role-model. She is part of the cut-throat, decadent and openly misogynistic fashion industry. An industry whose bosses, it has long been alleged, actively encourage their emaciated charges to hoover up the class As, and then discard them like so much trash. Who the hell are we kidding? Anyway, I’d like to think I would defend anyone who was the victim of hypocrisy, whoever they were. And I am lost for words at the laughable corporate hypocrisy of the labels scurrying to drop her from their ad campaigns. I mean, take a look at her contemporaries.

What made Paris Hilton famous? It wasn’t her brains. It wasn’t her acting or singing ability. It wasn’t even her looks, God help her. No… over and above her inheritance and her penchant for micro-minis - cut appealingly to show off her latest Brazilian - it was her starring role, at 19, in the home video made by her ghastly and exploitative ex-boyfriend Rick Solomon, imaginatively titled ‘One Night In Paris’. That’s right – Paris’s star hit the ascendant because of a porno.

Having been afforded the opportunity to view this cinema classic (courtesy of a DVD doing the rounds of my office*), I can tell you that she comes across as a wretched, dim-witted victim of that slimeball boyfriend; mewing at him not to point the camera at her; caught in the infra-red beam like a rabbit about to be shot; dull-eyes staring blankly as she sets to work on him; plucked bits and lipglossed mouth stuck for an inordinately, painfully long time on the end of his gruesome member. It is truly an ordeal – and I was only able to watch a fraction of it, shot as it is with the pornographer’s eye for plot twists and turns.

To cap it all off, the film is dedicated ‘To 9/11 – we will never forget’. A priceless touch! Perhaps it’s the patriotism that lets Paris and little Ricky off the hook. Perhaps it’s even un-American to criticise such an enviable debut.

This film made Paris the It Girl sensation she is today – admired by young fillies across the world. It literally, single-handedly made her. By contrast, some pictures of Kate Moss (doing what half of Hollywood does) have brought the poor girl’s career to a halt? How does that work? Since when has being completely humiliated and subjugated by some festering bloke, as Paris avowedly was in this film, been glamourous? And anyway, how much would you like to stake on Paris, or any young starlet for that matter, being a powder-free zone? Not much, I imagine…

If any impressionable young girls really think they’d like to be Paris Hilton, I’d encourage them to take a look at this poor snivelling dullard as she is figuratively and factually shafted by her stinking ex-boyfriend, and tell me they’d rather do that than a few lines of charlie with Kate. Personally, neither option remotely appeals to me, but at the risk of opprobrium from my less enlightened readers, I think what Paris did is far more disturbing and self-demeaning – and far from hurting her career, it has sent it into orbit… This is the bit I really don’t understand. Er… you go girl.

But back to Kate’s plight. Ultimately, who is the most deserving of a corporate rooting in this sorry tale? Surely the enlightened approach - with all forms of addiction - is to provide some kind of rehabilitation. Surely the owners of H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) and Rimmel Cosmetics would cut a much more compassionate dash with their young market if they offered Kate rehab rather than dismissal. Do we really want to discard and disown people who have habits? If so, there’d be a hell of a lot of people discarded, from the uppermost eschelons down. And more than a few of them would be these ruthless, hypocritical bosses of modelling agencies, of fashion houses, of record labels… I’d wager there’d even be a few politicians in there. But of course, they're not in a position to be sacked by anybody. No, not even the politicians. Kate's decline also highlights the fragility of even a so-called 'rich and powerful' woman's position in this barren post-feminist world.

Anyway, I've decided to boycott the label that has provided me with approximately a third of the clothes in my current wardrobe - that very handy little Scandinavian manufacturer of cheap, shitty clothes, Hennes, whose clothes Kate must have been paid a pretty penny to pretend she wore. I know sanctioning Hennes was probably something I ought to have considered when I realised the implications of their exotic 'Made In... (child labour-friendly) Cambodia, Romania, Thailand, Turkey, Russia' tags... but it wasn't, and I didn't, so I guess the persecution of an affluent, wayward supermodel will have to do as a peg on which to hang my principles. That, and the fact that I now live a good 12,000 kilometres from the nearest H&M high street.

As for Chanel, they're terribly badly made you know, darling; Burberry is the chavs' own choice, and Rimmel makeup, with its line in magenta glitter gloss, could only look good on a face as flawless as Kate's - though I'm sure she'd never touch the muck on her off days.






















*In case my boss is reading this – said horrendous DVD was viewed off the premises, and I will not disclose the name of the lender!