Frozen in time: Kate Moss, Paris, September 1993
In 1993, Kate Moss had the world at her perfect feet. And to prove it, here she is, dancing on the table at Brasserie Lipp in Paris, one of the city’s most celebrated restaurants, known more for its fancy clientele – a mix of presidents, poets, painters and publishers – than for haute cuisine.
The brasserie was opened in 1880 by the Alsatian sauerkraut and beer aficionado Léonard Lipp on Boulevard Saint-Germain, opposite the equally feted Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots. Marc Chagall, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Simone Signoret, Georges Pompidou, Yves Saint Laurent, Françoise Sagan, Richard Gere, John Galliano and, of course, Kate might all have found themselves round the same table if, by some trick of time travel, the years had collided. The art deco interior hasn’t changed over the decades, with its ceramic tiles, dark wood and tilted mirrors that allow diners to see who just walked in, or who is sitting on the table behind them.
The photograph was taken not long before Moss was to meet Johnny Depp at New York’s Café Tabac, an establishment where dancing on the tables was almost a requirement. At Brasserie Lipp (where loyal regulars are still seated in the ground floor dining room, never upstairs with the tourists), it is unlikely the maitre d’ would have ever allowed dancing on his tables unless, of course, it was Moss dressed as a bell girl, being photographed by Arthur Elgort for Vogue Italia.
Whether Moss enjoyed the brasserie’s speciality of pickled herrings or the signature choucroute Lipp (a hearty dish of sauerkraut, pork, sausage and boiled potato) isn’t clear. She famously once said: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, and it is fair to say three square meals were probably not part of the model’s then supposed daily routine of coffee, fags and more fags. She would no doubt have been made to feel at home with a kir royale or two in the fug of Gauloise smoke.
These days, she is still likely to be found dancing on a table, though it might be at home, where she is known to serve up a mean roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings.
