As the effortlessly cool model approaches her 40th birthday, Guardian writers and editors pick their most memorable Kate outfits, from the brazenly revealing to the decadently glamorous
There are so many great Kate moments, but I don't think she has ever looked sexier than she did at the opening of the Mario Testino exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in January 2002. As always with Kate, it's not really about the dress, it's about her. It's about a woman to whom having fun comes so naturally that she effortlessly picks the perfect party dress: in this case, a black Balenciaga number with an apron-style front referencing the house's classic styles, and bondage-style straps at the sides. The dress is brazenly revealing, but she counters that with a brilliantly haughty stare, and with classic Kate faux-artless hair and makeup – lots of black eyeliner, messy bun – so that she looks intriguing rather than simply doll-like. White is a classic accessory with an LBD (think of Coco Chanel, in her black shift and strings of pearls) and the big white fur is a very Kate way of making a classic look just a little more rock'n'roll. Perfection.
J C-M
This, to me, is Moss at her Mossiest: never mind all the talk about her representing "the best of London", or what have you. What makes Moss stand out is her love of decadent glamour, and her ability to carry it off in a way that makes her look cool, as opposed to like Ivana Trump. The images taken in 2004 of her going to her 30th birthday, themed The Beautiful and the Damned, have become iconic and various models have tried to copy the look less successfully (Georgia May Jagger, most recently). By choosing an unusual blue sequinned dress instead of a black one, Moss looks as if she is wearing the midnight sky, and the 1920s cut and cape look retro but also sexy. You see this again with her hair (retro) and dark eye makeup (sexy), giving a hint of what the party itself will be like. But what makes this my favourite of Moss outfits is Moss herself: look at her smile! She knows she is about to have, as she often does, A LOT of fun. And that's what makes her so irresistible.
HF
When Kate Moss turned up to the opening night of the V&A's 2007 exhibition the Golden Age of Couture in a vintage Christian Dior gown made from gold satin, she probably wasn't bargaining on Courtney Love treading on the train and ripping it. Yet the Moss style, attitude and insouciance meant that she simply tore off the bottom section and wore it as a short skirt for the rest of the night – and still looked amazing. Anyone else would have gone home and got changed. In a similar vein, when Moss arrived at the famous Berlin sex den the Kit Kat club and was told that she was attired too modestly, she just whipped off her top and walked straight in. She understands that great clothes are for having a good time in, not museum pieces to be treated like illuminated books from the depths of the British library.
AN
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp (1994-1998) might be my favourite style couple ever. I love them casual at the airport, Moss in a camel coat and cropped T-shirt, out on the town in matching leather jackets or with matching hangovers on The Big Breakfast. They were the definition of their decade's glamour – which came slightly déshabillé. This Narciso Rodriguez dress that Moss wore on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival in 1997 is typical. Grey marl shift, chandelier earrings, weird old-lady bag … On anyone else, this would be a bit uptown, and the height of snore. But not on Moss. Studying this picture – a lot – I think it's all down to the grooming. Her hair is loose and worn over her shoulders rather than in a lifeless updo, and it's contrasted with the bare face and red lippy. Moss's mastery of style was only in its infancy at this point. But its potential – especially when accessorised with Depp – was plain to see.
LC
I suppose being what Jerry Seinfeld would describe as a "jacket-and-jeans man" says quite a lot about me and the fashion world. However I've dealt with enough Kate Moss images to know that her face has an amazing quality when photographed: it complements the clothes she is wearing, rather than being any sort of distraction. Indeed, much of the time you hardly notice that it is her on the cover of that magazine or coming down the catwalk. I've never met Kate, but she was sitting behind me in the Barbican a few years ago during a Michael Clark dance company performance. She was in civvys, of course: her hair was scragged back and she was wearing a fur jacket, animal-print T-shirt, jeans and ankle boots. But she looked great, so much better than in the pap pictures I saw the next morning. Seeing her in the flesh confirmed the relaxed beauty seen so many times in fashion glossies and ad campaigns. And yes, jacket and jeans: the perfect look!
RT
I didn't know, when I first saw Kate Moss in this crumpled sweet-wrapper of a dress – Naomi Campbell on her shoulder, fag in her hand, knickers dipping down her pelvis like a swallow in flight – that it was designed by Liza Bruce. Or that it had been borrowed for a magazine photoshoot and had to be returned to the designer after the party, or that this 1993 party was a modelling awards do in a hotel somewhere. All I knew, as I fell in love for a lifetime, was that you could see the 19-year-old's nipples and her knickers but that that wasn't even the point; that she and Naomi were the good time that was wanted to be had by all. This was what real party girls looked like – it was like the song Girls Just Wanna Have Fun had come to life. After this shot was taken, Kate became the vortex around which every London party swirled, or longed to. (And she's wearing so little that her cigarette, ponytail and cheeks count as at least half of the outfit. God. I just want to drink it in.)
Sophie Heawood
I'm pretty sure this look constitutes the one and only time I've seen something on a celebrity in a photograph then rushed out to buy it. Even in isolation it's a shameful admission, but her look at the 2003 White Tea and Diamonds party was so completely perfect that I couldn't resist. Kate made Bella Freud's knitted homage to 1950s beat poet Allen Ginsberg (and New Wave french filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard on the jumper's "Godard is Dog" reverse) by far the most sought-after cult fashion item of that year – only compounded by Freud's decision to release the jumper in a small, limited run (she put a further 200 on sale in 2007). The jumper is the star of the show here, of course, but the whole outfit is classic Kate. Monochrome Maryjanes from Chanel and chic A-line mini manage to look prim and proper at an aristocratic five-star hotel tea party, while giving an irreverent nod to the counterculture movement that detested everything the event stood for. This jumper lives in protective film in my drawer to keep the moths at bay. I love it more now than ever.
Sali Hughes
The denim industry owes Kate Moss its bottom line. In the middle of the 2000s, Kate Moss was the queen of the skinny jean, and Topshop sold truckloads of its Baxter jeans to young women wanting to "get the Kate look". But this is the denim look that I love Kate in, hair sunny and loose, tucked-in nondescript T-shirt, faded flares. Yes Jane Birkin did it before her but it's the timing of the outfit that is class. She sat front row at the Topshop show at London fashion week 2006 as rumours swirled that she was going to design a collection for the high-street label. Typically, she said nothing. But by wearing wider leg, not skinnies, she was subconsciously setting herself apart from what the Topshop generation were wearing then. She'd moved on. Yet again, she'd silently let her clothes do the talking for her. The rumours were true, it marked the beginning of Moss the designer (a role she will revisit this April) and started a parallel denim trend in one flurry of pap pictures.
IF
Kate's 2011 wedding dress, designed by John Galliano, is a fairytale fantasy. In a way, it's quite unKate-like but when you realise it's inspired by the decadent and debauched world of her idol Zelda Fitzgerald (also the inspiration behind Kate's Beautiful and the Damned 30th birthday party) it makes perfect sense. The dress was the embodiment of every F Scott Fitzgerald heroine and Zelda rolled into one and the workmanship is exquisite – those delicate, shimmering, sequinned plumes snaking up from the hem. Simply stunning. It hints at private Moss, too, because it shows her loyalty as a friend: Kate could have any dress by any designer so the fact that she plumped for out-of-industry-favour Galliano speaks volumes.
HS
The simple black dress with thin spaghetti straps she wore strolling across a street in downtown Manhattan in 2005 is the one I think explains so much of her appeal. Made from a silk jersey that looks both slinky and comfortable, all it needs is a pair of neat, flat shoes, a wide belt and a hint of gold around her neck and bag to look amazing. To those of us who shy away from skin-tight skinny jeans and shorts smaller than our knickers, it is her most attainable look. Simple and yet stylish, even for those of us unblessed with long bowed legs and flat stomach. What could be better? Only this vintage lemon-yellow number she wore to an Another Magazine party two years earlier. Made from chiffon, it's the closest she gets to a "pretty-pretty" dress and yet she makes it look so cool. So much more so than the playboy bunny suit she donned for her 40th birthday, but we can't have everything.
JM