Once nicknamed “the tank” for her ability to guzzle champagne, the original 90s It model Kate Moss has swapped partying for dawn meditation and night-time tisanes.
On Thursday, Moss has launched her own wellness brand, Cosmoss, featuring six products including vegan skincare and mood-boosting teas, ranging from £20 for a canister of Dawn Tea to £120 for a Sacred Mist fragrance. “A story of reconnection from soul to surface. There is a magic to Cosmoss and I can’t wait for you all to uncover it, just as I did,” reads a statement in a press release.
Over the past decade there has been a shift in how consumers spend and flaunt their wealth. Nowadays you are more likely to see Instagrammers in luxury athleisure wear with a green juice after a boutique spinning class than posing with the latest Burberry handbag.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, the wellness economy is expected to grow by 10% annually through to 2025, when it will stand at £5.24tn. In the UK, the luxury department group Selfridges reports sales of supplements, superfoods and ingestibles are up almost 125% since 2021 and almost 700% compared with pre-pandemic levels. Its London store has launched a permanent wellbeing destination called the Feel Good Bar, “dedicated to the discovery of feeling good”, which offers information on gut health, hangover cures and sleep hacking.
Moss joins a long list of celebrities who have delved into this lucrative world. Gwyneth Paltrow, the OG of wellness who turns 50 this month, launched Goop as a newsletter from her kitchen table in 2008. The business is now valued at more than $250m and encompasses everything from beauty to clothing, podcasts and a Netflix series. In May 2021, Jessica Alba’s The Honest Company, which includes immune-boosting supplements and antibacterial cleaning sprays, went public via IPO giving it a $1.4bn valuation.
Meghan Markle recently renewed the trademark to her lifestyle site The Tig (she shuttered it in the months leading up to her marriage to Prince Harry). She has also invested in Clevr Blends, a plant-powered latte brand, leading to speculation she could be making a wellness comeback.
According to Lavinia Fasano, a foresight analyst at the Future Laboratory, these public figures are tapping into a concept labelled “enlightened states”, whereby consumers are pivoting towards personal transformation and introspection. “They are looking for brands that can ground and reorient them in this incredibly frantic and fast-changing world. It’s learning about yourself and how these products can be tools for that.”
On the Cosmoss site, Moss frolicks in a wildflower meadow and shares how her personal daily rituals – including using the face cream with wild Icelandic plants – help “find inner peace and self-fulfilment and open a door to balance, restoration and love”.
Usually notoriously private, in a branded email on Cosmoss’s launch day, Moss writes: “Over the last few years, I have been on my own private journey of wellness and self-discovery to find inner harmony, balance and love. As I write, I feel my most authentic self and I’m ready to open up and share with you.”
The Cosmoss Instagram, which has more than 30,000 followers, also offers an insight into Moss’s day-to-day routine. Luke Christian, a male grooming blogger from Leeds, placed an order within the first 10 minutes of the brand going live. “I’m a fan of the way we all know exactly who Kate Moss is yet we don’t know that much about her. She still remains relevant without giving too much away. It was a no-brainer that I would try them out,” he says.
Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC’s Desert Island Discs in July, Moss who has been sober since 2017, said: “I’m not into being out of control any more.” After swapping her Primrose Hill home permanently for a country house in the Cotswolds during the pandemic, she mused on her love of gardening, wild swimming and early nights.
Fasano says there is a level of imperfection to Moss’s narrative that makes Cosmoss even more compelling. “We are getting tired of the perfect wellness narrative, the fact she is able to weave in that narrative of self-discovery and transformation is a key component of her strategy.”
Less LA, more London, this is Moss doing wellness with a big wink. In an interview with US Vogue she even smoked two cigarettes while talking about the benefits of her Golden Nectar CBD oil after months earlier being revealed as the UK creative director of Diet Coke.
While true wellness warriors take to Twitter to reveal their disgust, Fasano says Moss is leveraging her personal brand, which is relatable to her existing audience. “It would be weird for her to have embraced it completely evangelically. It wouldn’t have worked.”
