KATE MOSS This Vanity Fair caption accompanied the smoldering 1935 Bruehl-Borges image (photographed on the set of the film Desire) on which this picture was based: “Mary Magdalene Dietrich—called Marlene—was born in Berlin two days after Christmas [1901]. As a child, she studied the violin, but grew up to be a singer of chansons vulgaires in Berlin music halls. In 1929, Josef von Sternberg saw her in a German theatre and hired her for the lead opposite Emil Jannings in the film The Blue Angel. Then he brought her to America to make Morocco. The rest is history. Somehow, from the complete inertia of her movements and her expressionless face, comes a mysterious emanation which is deadly to the male.” Deadly indeed. Here, British model Kate Moss does Dietrich Reconfigured, in this 2006 study by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Wrote A. A. Gill, in his essay introducing the image: “No tears. No excuses. Kate Moss looked out from a thousand pages of editorial vilification, and then a thousand more of luxury advertising, and didn’t dignify a single word [of press criticism]. There is an old, stiff-lipped, patrician motto that could be stitched on her pillow: never explain, never complain.… No words—just a picture.” By Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, 2006; Vanity Fair, September 2006; © Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.