Moss, Mated Again

Kate Moss should prove a good match for Donna Karan's spring/summer 2008 campaign. Karan's citified energy centralizes the urban woman in a place of smooth sidewalk modernity that for spring 2008 draws heavily on the release of industrial pursuits and the simple enjoyment of a weekend afternoon picnic.

Even at her most hoydenish, Moss has always ridden ahead of the modeling slipstream. Over and over, she has either swept herself free from the machine or been allowed to sweep herself free from the machine. Moss has had so many moments of perfection that it is easy to lose count of which of these carries the greatest impact or makes the greatest statment. At her best, she is a pastiche of no influence, bad influence, and her own influence, all carried off with wonderfully insouciant nonchalance.

Karan's spring/summer campaign requires freckled cheer and a large dose of post-WW2 blue skies, an attitude that is at once proudly American and here best expressed by an Englishwoman. I wasn't a fan of the disinterested, glazed expression of Karan's Spring 2008 runway show; it felt overly cultivated and too blank for a collection that drew heavily on the thriving optimism of the era that provided its largest inspiration. Here, the clothes required unstudied personality and spontaneity, traits that have long been a Moss private label.