Klein, Versace, Jacobs. These branded icons of the fashion world have spent millions to cultivate their public images. So when fashion insider and New York Times “Fashion Diary” scribe Guy Trebay today pictured each of them in a front-page Styles story (in the newspaper, not online), pegged to the travails of cocaine-waifed Kate Moss and the industry’s dogged problems with drugs, it likely hit these fashion houses like a bad review in WWD.
Of course, it’s no secret that many of today’s popular culture icons are plagued with all sorts of unsavory habits and behavior. Still, to the casual viewer of “ET’s The Insider” or “Extra” or reader of The Post’s Page Six or US Magazine, one may never all the dark details. This may be due to their publicists’ efforts to mask their clients’ seamier sides, but likely because media fragmentation and the 24/7 tenuous nature of news today, shortens a story’s legs.
It takes Kate Moss publicly being quoted as having little remorse or Courtney Love exposing her dark side in a drug-induced stupor on national TV to give their stories legs, and their PR reps heartburn.