Comment: Want to buy into Moss’s style? Better invest in a dress, not a home

For someone who writes about property and interiors, the news that Kate Moss is branching out into interior design is something of a godsend. Not only does it mean that home decor must be cool, but it should provide ample scope for editorial.

The north London-based supermodel has spoken in the past of her lack of confidence when it comes to interior decoration but, having opened up her Highgate house to Vogue earlier this year, she has now launched a career as a designer. Her debut project for property and design firm Yoo is a five-bedroom contemporary barn in the Cotswolds, which Moss has given her signature “Retro glamour” treatment.

This seems like it should be familiar territory for the model, whose personal style is so influential she has catapulted trend after trend into the nation’s wardrobe, from the cut-off denim mini to the black skinny jean. Yet the interiors at The Barnhouse, part of luxury second homes development The Lakes by Yoo, hit a surprising number of bum notes.

The rooms work well from certain aspects but they’re best viewed through a narrow lens – in some rooms the bigger picture appears muddled and incoherent. Even more surprising – coming from the iconic trendsetter – is that there’s nothing we haven’t seen before in this “juxtaposition of traditional elegance and modern design.”

Why might somebody so good at dressing themselves falter when it comes to dressing a house?

The most obvious reason to me is lack of practice: she may dress herself every day – and at 41 that’s a lot of outfits – but even with a new house every few years, opportunities to re-decorate a home, or even a room, are few and far between.

Then of course there are the differences in scale, knowing how to flatter a body is a more intricate task than knowing how to cut a space, not to mention the different approaches needed in the use of colours and motifs. And Moss’ raw material has always been her own body, an area we can imagine she has intimate knowledge of.

As to the use of pictures of yourself as decoration in someone else’s home – well, perhaps you can get away with that if your name is a byword for beauty. Still, if you want to buy into the famous Kate Moss style, you might be best off investing in a £60 dress rather than a £2.5million house – at least for now.