It was reported in Vogue last week that Kate Moss is considering her retirement from modeling in favor of focusing on her various business and design ventures. She called modeling "brain damaging." And so now, the greatest model who ever lived, our beautiful heroin chic goddess, she shall march off that glorious catwalk, heading toward the godless light of retirement. And I hate it!

It's not that I mourn over the retirement itself, but in the inevitability of beauty so sublime that Cleopatra shows jealousy, that such shocking beauty will come to an end, will disintegrate into lines of flesh cascading skull-ward down.

There is no one more gorgeous than once upon a time Brigitte Bardot: those sunshine eyes, that baby-doll nose, that almost crooked smile, a stray strand of hair falling gently over her brow: I shall forever keep this image of ultimate beauty in a secret place of my heart. But now the dear thing is overcome with age, gone is the heavenly visage. It's almost too much to bear!

And now we shall have to endure the tragedy of Kate Moss. A stick thin boy's body that'll grow horizontally, eyes that will squint ever more with the droop of skin, legs that will beam with varicose blue, and the self-destruction begins with retirement. No longer will Kate need to be camera ready and thusly the belle can wither away to a whisper of her former nude Calvin Klein glory.

The descent began two years ago when she became known globally as Cokate and thrust herself into damage control mode to shed the party girl image. Gone went Pete Doherty (together these two were the greatest coupling since Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin), gone went the debauched house in Primrose Hill, gone went the epic parties and drug fuelled bashes (though occasional stories of late night orgies did make the rounds); replaced were these by Kate Moss spending time with her daughter, refined choices in clothes, a respectable rock-star boyfriend; the wild beast looked tamed, matronly even. And with this latest Vogue cover the transformation appears complete. Now all that's left to do is sit back and wait for the liver spots.

I needn't fear aging - it's not a man's fear - but, admittedly chauvinistically, I absolutely loathe watching a woman age. I shouldn't be blamed for this any more than I should be blamed for the sadness I feel when a rose dies. Should the Lord be gracious enough to grant mortals a peek into the lives of gods, the merriment of angels, then why should we not cry when he doth taketh it away? So Kate Moss, please, I beg you on bended knee, hold out just a little bit longer. Provide purveyors of beauty one more glimpse of your aching gaze. Don't yet wither.

Story by Jeremy Tarr.

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