When Kate Moss launched her wellness brand, Cosmoss, back in 2022, much was made of her past. Admittedly, her public image hadn’t screamed salubrious. A poster girl for Nineties and Noughties excess, at one point she was nicknamed ‘the tank’ for her superhuman ability to knock it back. Now, at 49, she says partying “is boring to me now. I’m not into being out of control any more”.
And so, despite the snarkiness, Cosmoss celebrated its first anniversary this weekend during London Fashion Week. Moss marked the occasion with a party at Apollo’s Muse where Jared Leto, Ella Richards, and Bella Freud celebrated the milestone event alongside her. Then, on Monday, she hosted beauty editors and industry insiders at an intimate breakfast at Annabel’s with the likes of Jordan Barrett, Tish Weinstock, and Rosemary Ferguson.
Also cause for celebration was her triumph in a legal case to trademark her brand name — winning the right to start making a host of products — from candles to vitamins — after the Danish firm Pharmacosmos objected to her application. With that behind her and the naysayers, if not silenced, then at least less quietened, what does the future look like for brand Moss? Could Cosmoss really reach the heady heights of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness empire, which is widely reported to be worth an estimated $250 million, despite also attracting incredulity and derision when it launched in 2008?
For Moss, building an empire is not off the cards, and her ambition, she admits, is to have her products in every home. “The future holds no limits, only possibilities. I really want everyone to try and incorporate Cosmoss, and some time for themselves, into their daily rituals,” she tells me.
Like Goop, at the beginning at least, Moss is leaning heavily into the more spiritual side of wellness. She is evangelical about her daily rituals and meditations, and her latest product launch includes a book of Cosmoss Love Letters to ‘Brighten & Enlighten’. Moss flips through the book each morning, she says, and whichever page she lands on, she’ll read aloud, rip out, and carry with her for the rest of the day. The affirmations include statements like: ‘The perfect outcome is what happens’ and ‘You are enough, even when you are broken and can’t find some of your pieces, you are enough’. Cynics, look away now.
Moss has also teamed up with spiritual guru Deepak Chopra who has created a ‘sacred chant’ for Cosmoss. “We sent him the tea [bestselling Dawn herbal tea] and he loved it, then got in touch with us and said ‘can I be involved?’ Erm, yes please!” says Moss. “My dream when I started the brand was to be in touch with the universe and to be grounded, to be whole as a person and to give back. You know, service, love, and joy — and the way Deepak speaks about it, it’s like he’s sent from heaven. He’s amazing. To have time with him on my own, I just felt so safe.
“I started meditating before I launched Cosmoss, I had crystals… and I just wanted to take it a step further and launch a line of products that actually have that base, so it’s about getting into the spiritual side of things”
More details of their partnership will be announced in the new year but Deepak has grand plans. They are “embarking on an adventure to bring joy and healing to the world,” he said at the Cosmoss first birthday breakfast.
I think lots of people assume that when they see someone’s name on a product that perhaps they’re not that involved — but this is all Kate.
On launching a year ago, Cosmoss was met with a mixed response. Every outlet ran a story on the launch (of course they did, it’s Kate Moss after all), but few ran reviews of the products. The baton was picked up by bloggers, who overall offered praise for the Sacred Mist Eau de Parfum (with British Beauty Blogger calling it “a little bit heady — really, very pleasant indeed if these are your notes”), while Caroline Hirons was more searing about the skincare: “Just because you can make a skincare line, doesn’t always mean you should.”
Moss, who now resides solely in the Cotswolds and who is widely considered to have amassed $70 million throughout her career as a model, hasn’t just branched out into wellness: she is the Creative Director of Diet Coke and the founder of the Kate Moss Agency.
Do those three endeavours seem at odds with one another? Sure they do — but that’s Kate Moss all over, and those who know her best insist that a keen interest in wellness has long been one of her pillars; according to her friend Rosemary Ferguson, who also made the leap from modelling to working in wellness via nutrition, “she’s always been very in touch and instinctive when it comes to life, very present. I think lots of people assume that when they see someone’s name on a product that perhaps they’re not that involved — but this is all Kate,” she tells me. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued to grow because she’s deeply passionate about it. Cosmoss is her baby,” she adds.
Cosmoss provides a way for people to enhance their wellness journey — if they want to, she says. “Many of the pillars of wellness are free: breath work, meditation, exercise. Kate’s practised yoga and meditation for ages, and she created these products to enhance those practises, for people who want or need them,” says Ferguson.
With the wellness industry currently worth $4.4 trillion according to the Global Wellness Institute, it’s little wonder Kate and other celebrities — like Gwyneth with Goop, Miranda Kerr with KORA Organics, Elle Macpherson with WelleCo and, potentially, Meghan Markle, who has renewed her trademark on her lifestyle website The Tig, and who invested in plant-powered instant coffee brand Clevr recently — are keen to cast their oar into the very lucrative waters.
One reassuring final word for any of you who harbour a great fondness for Moss’s slightly more wild anecdotes: when she launched her delightful Cosmoss treatments at the new Lakes by Yoo spa this summer, she missed her flight and so had to join via Zoom and was beset with many technical difficulties. In the end, she walked off halfway through. It was considered “classic Kate behaviour” by the assembled journalists and influencers. So, rest assured, despite this new direction, Moss is still, somewhere in there, a bit naughty, a bit chaotically British.
