Kate Moss at Vogue's 90th Party, Serpentine, 2006
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London · 2026
I am Charles Pycraft, a London photographer. Twenty years ago yesterday, on Wednesday 8 November 2006, my camera has Kate Moss arriving at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens at 20:15 for British Vogue's 90th birthday party. Vogue's own report the next day said the night was "led by cover girl Kate Moss". This piece keeps to what the files show and what was reported at the time. The party was hosted by the editor, Alexandra Shulman, with Motorola, and it marked 90 years since British Vogue first appeared in September 1916. Moss was the obvious guest of honour. By the magazine's own count she had been on 23 British Vogue covers since 1993, and that same autumn she had been named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards.
The arrival
The two arrival frames are a second apart, at 20:15:36 and 20:15:37. Kate Moss steps out by a silver car on the gallery drive, under a sign for a raised pedestrian crossing, in a black astrakhan coat with a deep fur collar over a short yellow silk dress with a beaded hem, black opaque tights and black heels. In the first she is smiling straight at the lens, one hand holding her coat closed. In the second she looks down as she walks on.
The Serpentine was a natural home for a fashion party. The building began life in 1934 as a tea pavilion in Kensington Gardens and opened as the Serpentine Gallery in 1970. Inside that night, Vogue's report listed guests including Thandie Newton, Jemima Khan, Laura Bailey, Lily Cole and Daphne Guinness, and others reported Nigella Lawson, Yasmin Le Bon, Jasper Conran, Giles Deacon and Matthew Williamson among the crowd.
Later that evening
By 20:56 the camera is on Commercial Street in Spitalfields, outside the Golden Heart, its hanging baskets and the Spitalfields Wine Bar menu board lit up in the window. The Guardian's profile of the landlady, Sandra Esquilant, a few weeks later called it the haunt of almost all the important younger artists in Britain, with Gilbert and George, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas among the regulars, and Kate Moss on the list too.
At 21:12 she leaves, walking fast along the pavement in the same fur coat, her hair caught by the wind.
Who was in the picture
In 2006 Kate Moss was at the top of her profession again. In September Topshop announced that she would design a collection for the high street chain, to launch in spring 2007 across its stores. The same year the artist Marc Quinn began making sculptures of her, the start of a body of work that has now run for twenty years.
British Vogue marked its birthday with a December 2006 issue that folded out into a gatefold of past covers. Inside, Nick Knight photographed Moss for a feature on the clothes that changed our lives, and David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton were reunited for the issue.
The world that week
The night before the party, the United States held its midterm elections, and the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years. On the day itself, Wednesday 8 November, Donald Rumsfeld stepped down as Defence Secretary and President Bush nominated the former CIA director Robert Gates to replace him.
At the top of the UK singles chart that week was Fedde Le Grand with Put Your Hands Up for Detroit, which had taken over from McFly's Star Girl.
Where we are now
Kate Moss runs her own business these days. She founded the Kate Moss Agency in 2016 and launched Cosmoss, her beauty and wellness brand, in 2022. This autumn Marc Quinn has published Kate by Marc, a limited edition book of his twenty years of work about her, and she signed copies in Paris in October. At Tate Britain, The 90s: Art and Fashion, curated by Edward Enninful, runs until 14 February 2027, with Juergen Teller's portrait of her as the poster image.
British Vogue turned 110 this autumn. The Serpentine still sits by the lake in Kensington Gardens, now known as Serpentine South.
My own work has moved a long way from the pavements of Kensington Gardens. My photography years ran from 1999 to 2014, and that archive is now licensed through Backgrid UK.
The pictures
Four frames from a body of work I made in London between 1999 and 2014, all from the night of 8 November 2006.
Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com