Cocaine and the catwalk

Forget the clothes. Kate and coke are the sole topic of conversation for the fashionistas in VIP airport lounges, limousines and dressing rooms for London Fashion Week.

Photographs of Kate Moss snorting cocaine have set her multi-million dollar contracts tumbling like snow. But every insider already knows cocaine fuels the international fashion industry at every level, from glamorous catwalk to exotic photo shoot.

"Models use coke like truck drivers do, to stay awake and keep working," said an industry insider. Another said cocaine was used as a "performance-enhancing drug" in the same way athletes use steroids.

The model Sophie Anderton, who gave up cocaine a year ago, said drugs were "so accessible within the industry, and it is very difficult to steer completely clear of them".

Anderton dropped to 41kg as a result of her former addiction but is now "happy and focused". She said the "enormous pressures to stay thin in the industry almost lend themselves to take a substance well known for suppressing appetite".

Moss, who once said "I never do class A", was said to be distraught at being photographed cutting and taking cocaine with her boyfriend, the singer and drug addict Pete Doherty.

She has never set herself up as a clean-living role model. She never denied being a party girl. She has always been photographed by paparazzi with a cigarette dangling from her fingers. This has increased a sense of injustice from the fashion world at her treatment this week in some sections of the media.

"This is a media-driven witch hunt," a former women's magazine editor says. "The newspapers keep saying cocaine is a fashion industry problem but the truth is that it permeates all professions and all classes. Where is it going to end? Kate Moss never works again and we're all glad about it?"

Her plight has attracted sympathy among many at the London show. "Of course models take cocaine," said one fashion insider. "So do designers. And hairdressers, particularly. It is there at fashion shows, definitely, but it is quite covert.

"If you're looking for a blizzard of cocaine, go on a shoot. They go abroad, and it is like a little family: the model, the stylist, the fashion editor. That's when it really happens. I think it goes with the territory."

"The fashion business has always had this problem trying to deal with self-destruction," said Stephen Fried, who wrote the biography of Gia Carangi, who was widely acclaimed as the first supermodel before becoming a drug addict. She died from an Aids-related illness in 1986.

"I have talked to many models who have been sent by their agencies to get cleaned up. I don't think they have a hands-off approach at all."

Fried compared models using cocaine to athletes who take steroids. "These women work incredibly hard. They take drugs for the same reason a truck driver takes drugs. To stay awake and do their job. Like steroids, these are performance-enhancing drugs."

MOSS was unlikely to lose all her work, said fashion expert James Sherwood, who spent time with the biggest names in fashion for the book and documentary Models Close Up. He said some companies "want Kate Moss for the whiff of danger. If she overdoses then so much the better, she will be an icon. I'd have thought it would have made her even more of a commodity."

Donatella Versace announced earlier this year that she had given up cocaine after using the drug for 18 years. "In the beginning I had a great time," she says. "I didn't feel I was addicted. You just feel more awake, more aware. Unfortunately, it didn't continue like that."

Versace was confronted by family and friends, including Sir Elton John, and agreed to go into rehab.

Naomi Campbell admitted this year that cocaine had provoked violent outbursts in her. "What is very scary is that you start to feel too confident and you start to feel indispensable."

Fashion has long flirted with drug imagery, as Moss knows as well as anyone. She is paid a reported 500,000 ($1.2 million) a year by Dior, which has a perfume called Addict. She has modelled for Calvin Klein, which produces Crave. And she was featured in adverts for the Yves Saint Laurent scent Opium.

The London-born model was also a favourite waif for designers who opted for a wasted, "heroin chic" look during the 90s. That trend produced its most dramatic result in 1998 when the designer Andrew Groves produced a show called Cocaine Nights that featured a dress made of razor blades and a catwalk strewn with white powder.

Model agent Jonathan Phang helped to launch the career of Jodie Kidd and many others, and is now a judge on the reality television series Britain's Next Top Model. He has also worked closely with Christy Turlington, Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin.

"There is no denying that some extremely seedy things go on behind the scenes," he said. "There are some horrible people willing to stoop to any level to exploit beautiful young women."

They may strut the catwalk with confidence, said Phang, but many models are insecure. Some have left their friends behind at school.

"I've seen girls working in London during the day, then getting on a plane to Milan for a 3am fitting. Sometimes agents are pressing them to cash in while they are hot property. They are not asking whether the girls are getting enough sleep and eating properly."

It was hard for a young model to know whom to trust, he said. "The wrong people use and abuse women, and they introduce drugs as a means of control."

Donal MacIntyre, who has worked in the fashion industry as an undercover reporter, said: "Some models have to do lashes of cocaine just to keep the weight off. Some will have a piece of toast a day.

"I talked to lots of models who were relying on cocaine simply to keep the weight off. They need to stay slim and sleek. It is a brutal, brutal trade. Your time at the top is not a long one. It is a lonely trade, too. Plus, cocaine is a party drug; fashion is a party industry."

The drug is as ubiquitous as champagne at a launch party. "Backstage, at a shoot, just waiting around, people use coke like others drink coffee," said one source. SEVEN months ago, the new commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Ian Blair, said he was concerned that cocaine was socially acceptable among the middle classes. "There are some who think their weekend's wrap of charlie is entirely harm-free," he said, "but it may not be entirely harm-free for much longer." Sir Ian promised his force would be "making a few examples of people".

The fashion world has moved to Milan where insiders believe the talk of Kate Moss will tail off. "Fashion gossip doesn't usually last for more than a few days," one insider said.

The artist Tracey Emin is a close friend of Kate Moss, but hates cocaine. "It has destroyed so many friends and people I know. I don't like it and I don't respect it." But she does not think fashion is the only industry where the drug is prevalent.

"There was a survey done in the BBC toilets, the Houses of Parliament. There wasn't a surface that hadn't been touched by cocaine. If a supermodel dabbles in some recreational drugs, it isn't going to change the world. If airline pilots and doctors are doing it we might have a problem. But they should stop picking on Kate."

That sentiment will be echoed among many in the fashion business, not least by those who are thinking, "Poor Kate. It could have been me."

- Independent