London - While 42-year-old Kate Moss and 46-year-old Naomi Campbell may be old friends - the two met on a shoot in Los Angeles in 1992 and have been pals ever since - it’s fair to say their 25-year relationship has been marked by a certain rivalry.
For their careers have had eerie parallels - and a touch of “anything she can do, I can do better”.
While Kate brought out an upmarket Taschen coffee table book in 2012 to mark 25 years as a model, Naomi did the same this year to mark her 30 years in the industry.
In 2007, Kate starred in a raunchy video for upmarket lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, while last year Naomi poured her incredible body into stockings and suspenders to front the brand’s campaign.
Last year, Kate and Naomi smouldered in Burberry ads. Naomi even managed to steal the show when Kate launched her collection for Topshop, turning up in a fringed metallic mini-dress looking decades younger.
Their friendship has had its ups and downs, but which supermodel has come out on top and weathered the test of time better? We compare the famous bodies, the property portfolios, the millions - and, of course, the men.
Faces of fortune
While smoking, too much sun and a party-hard lifestyle have left Kate with wrinkles, her friend Naomi - gallingly three years her senior - has barely aged a day.
Kate has a distinctive pack-a-day pout, her full lips lined by wrinkles due to smoking, and is also afflicted by patches of pigmentation, crow’s feet and even spots. Kate’s sun-worshipping ways will have done her pale complexion no favours - she admitted in an interview in 2013 that after a Caribbean holiday she had come back “so brown everyone laughed at me. I loved it, boiling and lying out there”.
While Naomi Campbell clearly has genetics on her side - mother Valerie is still dewy-skinned in her mid-60s - she’s had a little hi-tech help.
She has had sessions with top New York dermatologist David Colbert, who prescribes anti-oxidant creams to protect from pollution and ageing, free radicals in the day, and retinoids, designed to boost collagen production in the face, at night.
As for Botox, Naomi took legal action against Botox king Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh in 2006 after he used her name in an advertisement. Naomi would not say whether or not she was his client, but her lawyers explained that she objected to being used to endorse his products. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working.
Winner: Naomi
Double trouble
“Everyone has a temper,” Naomi once announced. Yes, but not usually, one like hers.
She has been convicted of assault not once, but four times. In 2000 she pleaded guilty to assaulting her personal assistant with a cellphone.
In 2007, she admitted assaulting her former housekeeper, while in 2008 she admitted kicking and spitting at UK police officers after an argument about lost luggage. In 2009, she was found guilty of hitting a photographer with her handbag. She once wore a T-shirt that read: “Naomi Campbell hit me. And I loved it”.
Her one-time boyfriend, boxer Mike Tyson, famously remarked that nothing scared her. There was a legal battle after it was revealed that she had been attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings for cocaine addiction. She later said she had been an addict for five years up to 1999 and said: “It’s a very nasty drug.”
Kate, meanwhile, has weathered numerous scandals of her own. Her first trip to rehab came in 1998 after her romance with actor Johnny Depp ended.
Author Maureen Callahan wrote in the book Champagne Supernovas: “Kate and Johnny were the chicest, druggiest couple since Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg, the epitome of cool in a Trainspotting culture.” Callahan alleged that Kate put away cocaine and booze with such abandon that she was known as “The Tank”. She and Depp split in 1997, were briefly reconciled and then split again. Kate checked into The Priory in London.
In 2005, footage of Moss apparently snorting cocaine when in a recording studio with then-boyfriend Pete Doherty led to another reported stint in rehab - this time a month at the Meadows Clinic in Arizona. And last year, she was escorted off a plane at Luton airport by police after being “disruptive” when returning from a spa break with friends in Turkey. She had apparently been sneaking drinks of vodka from her luggage.
Winner: It’s a tie
Battle of the beach bodies
It’s a brave woman who holidays with Naomi Campbell - as Kate Moss discovered when she was pictured on a Brazilian beach with her in 2014.
While Kate’s bandeau bikini did little to flatter her flat chest and slight paunch, Naomi revealed a stomach you could bounce pennies off, long, toned legs and perfectly sculpted arms.
At only 1.7m, Kate is on the short side for a model and has complained about her “bandy” legs. And as she has aged, so her legs have started to look older, too, with wrinkled knees and puckering on her thighs.
In a rare interview in 2012 she said: “I didn’t like my flat chest. I was like, Oh, I’m going to have a t*t job”.
“And I used to be so scared and thought, Oh, I don’t want to show my body.”
“Now that I have shown it, it doesn’t bug me about my moles, or This isn’t big enough and That’s not smooth enough”.
Kate is a mother-of-one, while Naomi’s figure is unblemished by child-bearing. Kate sometimes enjoys Pilates, but generally controls her weight by not eating rather than exercise. Pictures of her cellulite on show on the Louis Vuitton catwalk in 2011 caused a sensation.
Naomi, however, still has an incredible figure.
She has the same high, round bottom and long, lean, muscular legs which she had in her 20s. Her secret? Diet and incessant exercise.
She no longer drinks alcohol, has become a vegetarian and does cayenne pepper and maple syrup drink diets -which involve a daily intake of no more than 600 calories - for up to 18 days at a time.
In an interview in 2014, she said she does juice cleanses two or three times a year and revealed a mostly liquid diet. The day starts with hot water and lemon, then green tea and an aloe vera juice. Then there is yoga or pilates, a green juice for lunch, or else a salad and dried fruit as a meal.
She does Zumba at 6pm and won’t eat after eight. Sometimes she misses dinner. She also uses a skipping rope, which she says is great for shedding weight off your face.
Winner: Naomi - with a lot of hard work and deprivation.
The list of lovers
Kate is believed to have had at least 40 lovers - of both sexes. Currently divorcing her husband rocker Jamie Hince, she has recently had a stormy liaison with party-hard aristocrat Nikolai Von Bismarck, 28, who is living with her.
Among those who fell under her spell in the early years were actor Mark Wahlberg, rocker Liam Gallagher, actor Sean Penn, DJ Jeremy Healy, producer Nellee Hooper, actor Leonardo DiCaprio in 1998, rocker Evan Dando, actor Billy Zane, DJ Dan MacMillan, rocker Lenny Kravitz and Ronnie Wood’s son Jesse. Writer Jefferson Hack dated her from 2001-04 - their daughter Lila was born in 2002.
She was said to have dabbled with socialite Davinia Taylor and best pal Sadie Frost at the height of the Primrose Hill set back in 2002. Rocker Courtney Love claimed that they had a sapphic fling: “It was just a thing that happened in Milan in the ‘90s,” she said.
By comparison, Naomi’s love life seems sedate. She dated actor Robert de Niro in the ‘90s and was engaged to Adam Clayton of U2.
More recently, she had a long relationship with F1 businessman Flavio Briatore and a five-year romance with Russian millionaire Vladislav Doronin.
Winner: Kate’s the most popular
The luxury homes
Naomi has a £3-million apartment in New York and is also understood to rent a place in Mayfair since splitting from Doronin.
Kate has an £8m house in Highgate, North London, just down the road from singer George Michael. She also has a £3m, Grade II listed, 10-bedroom country house in the Cotswolds - the scene of her wedding reception in 2011 and many parties.
Winner: Kate
Crowning glories or bald truth
The years - of tugging, styling and drying - have not been kind to either supermodel’s hair.
Outside of photo shoots, Kate tends to scrape her hair into a limp pony tail and it can look very over-processed and thin. Stylists will often add a hairpiece to make it look fuller.
Naomi, though, has clear signs of traction alopecia and has been apparently wearing wigs for at least five years.
The condition is caused by years of wearing weaves, over-processing hair, and glues.
It can take between three months to a year for hair to grow back in moderate cases, but if the pulling continues, the hair will never grow back.
Winner: Kate
Bags of cash
Naomi may be worth £34m, but Kate is Britain’s wealthiest model, worth a staggering £55m.
What does she spend it on? Aside from her art and photography collections, she likes to stay at Claridge’s in London, The Ritz in Paris and to travel by private plane.
Both women have earned fortunes throughout their long careers from advertising deals - and Kate has been far more successful than Naomi. Accounts show that Kate’s main company, Tilly Church, has more than £9m in the bank with Skate LLP having another £5m net worth.
Naomi has boosted her income via a range of fragrances and even attempted a short-lived singing career in 1994. She has also appeared in several films and TV shows, including The Face, and the drama Empire.
Kate has made money from Topshop - apparently £3m a year for three years. She wrote some songs on the Babyshambles album when dating singer Pete Doherty. Like Naomi, she has released several fragrances.
Winner: Kate
Party animals
Both ladies love to throw a party. Naomi hosted a massive celebration in Jodhpur, India, for the 50th birthday of her then-boyfriend Vladislav Doronin.
Kate was among the guests and Diana Ross sang. Naomi also threw a huge party to mark her 40th in Cannes. Kate’s bashes are more rock and roll.
Her 21st in Los Angeles featured a performance by INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.
A guest was rushed to hospital having taken too much cocaine.
Her Beautiful And The Damned -themed 30th birthday party - where, apparently, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood fell off the wagon - reportedly ended in an orgy.
Winner: Nobody out-parties Kate
Alison Boshoff, Daily Mail