“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” That’s what Kate Moss told Women’s Wear Daily in November 2009 in reply to the question “do you have a motto?”

The resulting backlash from health campaigners was immediate. And understandable.

As Susan Ringwood, CEO of eating disorder charity Beat, explained to Reuters at the time, the phrase was used “prominently and so obviously in connection with pro-anorexic websites”. 

The waiflike Moss, Ringwood added, was “a person who young people look up to, she’s such a style icon, they are very interested in her life, they follow all the details of it. So, for her to even inadvertently legitimise something that could be potentially so harmful is regrettable.”

Regrettable indeed.

Nine years later, in an interview with US TV host Megyn Kelly, Moss finally expressed her own regret for that irresponsible motto. And yet it still hangs around her like a bad smell.

No wonder then that news that Diet Coke has signed up Moss as its new creative director, coinciding with its 40th anniversary, has tails wagging.

As yesterday’s Guardian noted: “It is striking that, in an era of body positivity, a diet drink has partnered with a woman known for her slender physique and the famous pronouncement that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’.”

It’s not only for that reason that the team-up seems incongruous, however.

Sure, Diet Coke has a long association with the fashion industry, having “previously partnered with designers Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs, and the drink was a sponsor at London Fashion Week in February” The Guardian points out.

And while ‘heroin chic’ pioneer Moss was recently back in the limelight for giving evidence at the Depp-Heard libel trial, she’s hardly a superstar these days. In fact, it could quite easily be argued Moss is less well-known nowadays than Diet Coke’s previous British mouthpiece, Holly Willoughby.

All that being said, Moss is a 34-year veteran of the fashion world and a successful business owner, with her talent agency raking in £3m in profits last year (even before she cashes the £5m cheque from Coca-Cola).

So, perhaps Diet Coke is banking on her wealth of experience and contacts to make up for her somewhat faded celebrity.

The brand long since dropped its ‘Just for the Taste of it’ slogan. The new tagline is ‘Love What You Love’. 

It’s a phrase that speaks to her, Moss said. “The ‘Love What You Love’ campaign connected with me instantly, as I am a firm believer that with confidence and passion, you can achieve your wildest dreams.”

Maybe that’s her understanding of the phrase ‘body positive’.

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