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Smile please: Photographer Corinne Day's revealing portrait of supermodel Kate Moss

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Is it our imagination - or is supermodel Kate Moss just a little bit tipsy in this new official picture for London's National Portrait Gallery?

Wearing no make-up, the 33-year-old looks highly animated in the series of nine pictures which are shot in black-and-white.

The portrait was taken by Corinne Day, whose 'heroin chic' images in the 90s first propelled the Croydonborn model into stardom.

Looking alternately angry and melancholic, it might be that Moss was chatting about her on-off relationship with singer and drug addict Pete Doherty when the pictures were taken.

But British photographer Day is resolutely tight-lipped on what exactly Moss said during the threehour shoot at the model's North London home two months ago.

'I suggested to Kate that we had a conversation about a serious subject,' she said. 'The subject she chose revealed her true feelings and in turn defined her character.'

Day was one of the first to work with Moss after she was discovered by a modelling agency aged 14. Their infamous first collaboration in Vogue in 1993 featured the waiflike Moss wearing dreary underwear in a squalid-looking flat.

Moss herself says she hasn't changed much since that first shoot with Day. 'I've got crooked teeth, bow legs, a wonky nose,' she says. A former model and self-taught photographer, Day is renowned for bringing a hard-edged documentary look to fashion images. She forms close relationships with many of her sitters, resulting in candid and intimate portraits.

A National Portrait Gallery spokesman said: 'The portrait brings something new to our perception of the enigma that is Kate Moss - among the most photographed women in the world today.'

The commission will go on permanent display at the gallery from February 12. Its unveiling coincides with the gallery's Face of Fashion exhibition which opens on February 15.

 

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