Mario Sorrenti recalls his early ’90s snapshots of Kate Moss

Kate Moss
Photo by Mario Sorrenti

Mario Sorrenti recalls 

his early ’90s snapshots 

of Kate Moss

On the occasion of his new book ‘Kate,’ photographer Mario Sorrenti discusses starting out his career, slowing down in the age of digital photography, and passing on his craft to his daughter Gray. 

Text by
Maraya Fisher

Photography by
Mario Sorrenti

Posted
September 20, 2018

Kate Moss
Photo by Mario Sorrenti

When Kate Moss and Mario Sorrenti first met in London the summer of 1991 during a modeling job, Sorrenti was immediately taken with her. They met again by chance a few months later at a party, and the photographer recalls spending the whole evening together, “walking into the early morning until we fell asleep in the grass in Hyde Park. We spent the next two years together; we were inseparable.”

Unseen and intimate portraits of Kate Moss revealed in new Mario Sorrenti book

Unseen and intimate portraits of Kate Moss revealed in new Mario Sorrenti book

7 SEP 2018

BY SIMON MILLS

The year is 1993; the hot movies are Jurassic Park and Groundhog Day while the pop charts are buzzing with debut album releases by newcomers Bjork, Radiohead and Suede. The state-of-the-art automobile of the moment is the Citroen Pallas, upstart tech outfit Apple has recently launched its revolutionary Newton gizmo and Kate Moss, from Croydon, England, on the brink of attaining bonafide supermodel status, is just 19 years old.

A new luxuriously packaged book from Phaidon entitled simply Kate is a collection of 50 portraits of a young Moss taken by her then-boyfriend, photographer Mario Sorrenti back in 1993. Moss was to become Sorrenti’s muse, following in a long line of artist-muse relationships such as Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, and Irving Penn and Lisa Fonssagrives.

Many of the book’s images have never been seen or published before. Here’s Kate asleep, Kate playing on her Nintendo Gameboy, Kate showering, reading, smoking, and wearing her boyfriend’s Y-fronts. She’s make-up free, uncoiffed and happily, casually naked or half dressed, in pretty much every frame. Surroundings are idyllic and modest, actions unguarded, sweet and endearing. Calvin Klein saw the commercial potential of Sorrenti’s pictures of Moss and signed him up for a memorable ‘Obsession’ campaign. Photographer and muse became international fashion superstars.

Sorrenti, the book’s introduction tells us, had first met her in 1991. ‘I remember sitting next to her and feeling like my heart was going to stop her beauty overwhelmed me.’ Accordingly, his pictures – all dreamy, Penn-ish black and white, all apparently spontaneous and intimate to the point of voyeuristic intrusion – capture the magic intensity of a young man and woman in love. Every delicate picture evokes a tacit sense of playful trust between photographer and subject. You feel like you are playing gooseberry just by looking at them.

Who but Kate Moss can make the act of pegging clothing to a washing line – completely starkers, naturally – look like a fashion moment?

wallpaper

Kate Moss / A date with Lucian Freud

Kate Moss / 25 years in fashion

Was Kate Moss exploited as a young model

Kate Moss by Terry Richardson

How a nude Kate Moss helped define the 90s

Kate Moss says she was never anorexic 

Kate Moss / Nude

Mario Testino / In Your Face

Kate Moss / Old Pictures in Vietnam

Kate Moss / Noami Campbell / Two beautiful women

Kate Moss / Quote

Kate Moss / 25 Years in Fashion

Smoking Room / Kate Moss

Kate Moss / Girl

Kate Moss and the £1million Lucian Freud tattoo
Is this the Kate Mossiest Vogue cover all time
Kate Moss, supermodel as phenomenon, sees the million pour in

Rihanna / Lui Magazine 2014

Mario Sorrenti

Rihanna

Lui Magazine may 2014

Léa Seydoux by Mario Sorrenti

Léa Seydoux Seduces 

In Lui Magazine 

By Mario Sorrenti

French actress Léa Seydoux wears only a transparent chiffon cape by Alexandre Vauthier on the cover of the newly relaunched French monthly Lui or ‘him’ in English. Seydoux is lensed by AOC favorite photographerMario Sorrenti.

Jean-Yves Le Fur, founder of Numéro, has taken on the goal of reviving the seventies erotic publication, with the first issue hitting newsstands now.

‘It is the whim of a spoiled kid,’ said editorial director Frédéric Beigbeder, commenting on his involvement in the revival of the original publication that ceased to be in 1994. Beigbeder told WWD that he has collected every issue since the magazine’s creation in 1963.

Yseult Williams, founder of Grazia in France, is the editor in chief of the magazine, while New-York based George Cortina is the editor in chief for fashion. Céline Perruche has joined Lui from Grazia as beauty, style and lifestyle editor.

Also in the first issue are editorials by Mikael Jansson and Glen Luchford, who flashed Malgosia Bela, Le Fur’s soon-to-be wife.

WWD writes:

The launch comes at a time when men’s magazines — albeit a smaller world — are trending better than women’s. Paid circulation in France of men’s magazines, a segment that includes GQ andVogue Hommes International, grew 2.8 percent in 2012 to 2.5 million copies, according to France’s Circulation Audit Bureau. In the meantime, circulation of the vastly larger women’s magazine segment fell 3.4 percent in 2012 to 371.6 million copies.

Estimates are that women will be one-third of Lui readers. Based on the femme readership of Treats!, that’s a low number. Perhaps Smart Sensuality women prefer men’s magazines these days? ~ Anne