On July 1 Christie's in London will auction off a stunning full frontal nude of Kate Moss by Chuck Close in its Photographs sale. Taken in 2003, the artwork is estimated at about $11,500 - $16,000 but could easily go much higher.

If that's out of your range or you don't want to risk being outbid, there's another option for getting Kate naked at your place. Via PhotographersLimitedEditions.com you can now purchase signed limited edition works from some of the world's best known photographers.

The investment-quality pieces come in limited editions of 11-25. One of our favorites is this nude of Moss by British photographer Rankin, taken in 2000. Produced in a limited edition of 25, the photo is priced at about $4,500.

The site also offers several of Rankin's other works including some celebrity portraits, as well as photos by the likes of Antoine Verglas, Arthur Elgort and Marc Baptiste, featuring many other gorgeous nudes.

The modeling industry, as with other luxury-linked businesses, has been struggling in the sluggish economy. Agencies and designers alike are more cautious with their spending making a coveted modeling contract even harder to get these days. But for the elite models, top earners as measured from June 2008 through June 2009, the modeling world does not hold any obstacles. Still making millions, gaining new contracts and diversifying their stakes between endorsements, catwalks and reality shows, such well-known models as Gisele Bündchen (#1) and Heidi Klum (#2) haven't lost anything in the changing marketplace.

These top-models can be likened to professional athletes whose contracts and million-dollar-checks don't decline with the fluctuating economy. A-Rod and Kobe Bryant won't see a decrease in their earnings just because Wall Street is fickle. I would doubt Hollywood's top earners are affected either. It seems when it comes to celebrities, whether cover girls, sports entertainers or the silver screen's finest, matters of the world economy just don't hit home. I bet those millionaires who made their wealth through investments, business transactions and real estate are wishing they could have been blessed with long, lean legs and dynamite smiles right about now.

These days the celebrated French leathergoods company Longchamp is best known for its super-stylish handbags as seen in ad campaigns starring Kate Moss (above). Most people are unaware however that the company, which dates back to 1948, started off selling luxurious leather-covered pipes to Paris' bon ton. The rich heritage of the firm is celebrated in Longchamp, a gorgeous new illustrated history from Abrams by Marie-Claire Aucouturier with photographs by Philippe Carcia, published in celebration of the company's 60th anniversary.

Beginning with the deluxe pipes, which became a favorite of Elvis Presley (pictured smoking one in the book), the company built a brand as a bridge between the very social equestrian world and the world of luxury travel. Named after Paris' famed Longchamp racecourse where Napoleon III presided over the Royal Enclosure, the company adopted a horse and rider as its logo. The pipes were soon followed by cigarette cases and other leather accessories for smokers, then expansion into small leather goods in the 1950s, followed by the opening of the first Longchamp boutiques in the 1970s and '80s.

The first in a line of luxurious luggage soon followed. Longchamp thrived where many firms failed by catching on early to the importance of the Asian market. In the early 1970s, Philippe Cassegrain, Longchamp's founder, designed a line of bags called "LM," destined for the Japanese market, recently re-released for the anniversary. Its success gave Longchamp a solid reputation as a creator of women's handbags and enabled the company to expand further. In 1993 Cassegrain introduced the Le Pliage collection of foldable travel bags made of colorful vinyl with luxurious leather trim, an instant smash; two billion of them have been sold since.

While many high-end boutiques are experiencing a severe downturn, L.A.'s "luxury erotic emporium" Coco de Mer is busier than ever, with an increasing quotient of sex-starved celebs. The Melrose Avenue shop sells a wide range of goods including lingerie, books, oils, housewares and luxurious sex toys and accessories, including a $10,000 14kt gold and diamond vibrator. Angelina Jolie was spotted shopping there just the other day (though we don't know what she splurged on). Other celebs including Madonna, Kate Moss, Salma Hayek and Sienna Miller have also been by to pick up something saucy for, ahem, entertaining at home.

The shop is owned by Justine and Sam Roddick, daughters of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, who opened the original Coco de Mer in London in 2001. The shop's clever, opulent design features a "Confessional" room attached to the dressing room providing a private view of your partner trying on lingerie. All of their products are made in consideration of the environment and human rights, and their policy is to invest in the work of local talent as well as small Fair Trade projects or cottage industries. The Roddicks are "committed to enabling individuals to use sex as an instrument to transform their own existence."

Kate Moss is back on the block at Bonhams Urban Art auction in London later this month. Banksy's images of Kate Moss as Marilyn Monroe are up for sale again. The six prints, each one signed and dated in pencil and numbered 02/20 are estimated to sell for : £100,000 - 150,000 and will be for sale on February 24. Banksy's prints of Moss as the modern Marilyn sold for £96,000 at the Bonhams Urban Art auction in February 2007 and a set of the six prints sold for around $94,000 back in 2006. Will the prints experience a similar upward bounce this year? I'd say these will come in for the low end of the estimate or maybe even below it despite the ongoing popularity of Kate Moss as art muse.

[via Vogue UK]

Kate Moss stars in a variety of ad campaigns, but she has also inspired many artists.

The just barely recognizable Moss shown here is part of artist Yuko Nasu's upcoming solo exhibition, John Doe at the Arts Gallery in London. John Doe is a series of imaginary portraits inspired by gossip magazines and discarded newspapers. The blurb on Yuko Nasu, who is from Japan, states that she is "unfamiliar with the cultural references or celebrities in contemporary British media stories" and therefore free to develop her own interpretations.

Vogue UK reports that Moss's boyfriend, Jamie Hince, has picked up one of Nasu's earlier works.

The unstoppable Kate Moss is more gorgeous than ever in her latest ad campaign, for Fred Joaillier, the Parisian jeweler established in 1936 and now part of LVMH. The ad (above), shot in beautiful black and white by famed photographer Patrick Demarchelier, shows Kate at her most classic sporting a small fortune in diamonds. We have to say it bears more than a little resemblance to Moss' ads for rival jeweler David Yurman, which are shot by Peter Lindbergh, though on the whole Fred exhibits more taste. Last month we reported on Moss' new ad campaign for French fashion house Longchamp, and it's shaping up to be another banner season for the timeless temptress.

Last summer we told you about Kate Moss' cinematic ads for French fashion luxury leathergoods house Longchamp. Now the supermodel is starring in Longchamp's newest campaign, alongside a sexy Russian lookalike named Sasha Pivovarova. That's Kate, above, on the left, and Sasha on the right, sporting matching hairdos and outfits from Longchamp's spring ready-to-wear line. The new ads were shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot in Los Angeles. In January, Longchamp will debut a video about the making of the ads on its website.

Last week we wrote about Christie's Nov. 19 photo auction starring a slew of naked supermodels including Albert Watson's 1993 nude of Kate Moss in Marrakech, which was estimated at $23,000 - $31,000. On Nov. 26 in London the auction house is staging another photo sale, with another equally appealing (in our opinion) photo of Kate in her birthday suit. The photo (above), taken by one-named lensman Tesh in 2005, may not have the pedigree of Watson's pic, but at only $1,500 - $2,000, it's a real steal. There are some other good deals to be had in the London sale, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel, James Dean, Andy Warhol and more.

On Nov. 19, Christie's in London will auction off a stunning collection of photographs including some provocative shots of the world's most beautiful women. From a purely aesthetic standpoint the highlight of these is this 2000 portrait of Brazilian bombshell Gisele Bundchen by Mark Seliger, estimated at $9,000 to $12,000 - a relative bargain compared to Martin Schoeller's 2003 Angelina Jolie with Blood, est. at $23,000 - $39,000.

Also included in the sale: Albert Watson's 1993 nude Kate Moss, Marrakech, est. at $23,000 - $31,000; David LaChapelle's 1999 Britney Spears, Baby, est. $23,000 - $31,000; Michel Comte's 1996 James King, New York City, est. $6,000 - $9,000; and Gavin Bond's 2007 snap of Victoria's Secret stunner Adriana Lima, est. $5,000 - $8,000.

British artist Marc Quinn's $2.7 million life-size solid gold statue of Kate Moss, which we told you about last month, just went on display to the public, and Quinn says the supermodel's thrilled. Said to be the world's largest gold statue made since the days of Ancient Egypt, the piece was unveiled at the British Museum in London and has drawn large crowds.

"When I showed Kate the statue, she told me she loved it," Quinn says of the piece, entitled Siren. "She modeled for me for a day or so - but she didn't pose for me like that." Noting that Siren is about "trying to live up to impossible dreams or immortality," something Moss apparently contends with on a daily basis, he says, "For Kate, she thinks it lifts her into a mythic level. I think she very much loved it because she appreciates the difference between her image and herself."

British artist Marc Quinn has cast a life-size solid gold statue of Kate Moss, valued at $2.7 million and said to be the world's largest gold statue made since the days of Ancient Egypt.

The statue, entitled Siren, is a larger, golden version of his 2006 marble statue of Moss, Sphinx, in a provocative yoga pose. Sphinx weighs in at 110 pounds, which is probably quite close to Moss' actual weight.

Quinn's work "deals with the distanced relationship we have with our bodies," according to his gallery's bio, "highlighting how the conflict between the 'natural' and 'cultural' has a grip on the contemporary psyche." Moss is "the ideal beauty of the moment," the artist tells Vogue UK.

Siren will be on display alongside works by Damien Hirst and others at the British Museum in London for its Satuephilia show running from Oct. 4 - Jan. 25. See the gallery for more examples of Quinn's work.

On the heels of Kate Moss' already impressive fall ad campaign successes comes news of more coups scored by the eternally gorgeous supermodel: two more major contracts and some serious magazine exposure. On the ad campaign front, her latest big bucks gigs come courtesy of Yves Saint Laurent's beauty line (above) and renowned jeweler Bulgari, both shot in classic black-and-white.

In addition, she appears on the covers of the latest issues of both Vogue and Interview; in the latter she poses totally nude, and she also appears topless (yet again) in a stunning spread for the September issue of W magazine. All this comes as she launches her new clothing line for British retailer Topshop, to great fanfare. We predict the Kate Moss brand will develop into an extremely profitable luxury goods enterprise, with many more product lines to come.

One of the investors in Billionaire, the famed club for the megarich on Sardinia's swank Emerald Coast, says the club should be shuttered because of the current economic climate. Billionaire, a favored haunt of tycoons who come to frolic with the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, Kate Moss and Sean Combs, is controlled by rakish Formula 1 mogul Flavio Briatore (above), but Italian entrepreneur and politician Daniela Santanchè has a 10% stake.

Santanchè says that the ultra-exclusive club, where methuselahs of Cristal go for $50,000 a pop, is an offensive relic of a more wasteful age, the London Guardian reports. "With people struggling to get by, Billionaire should be consigned to history," Santanchè says. "I myself have put my Aston Martin in the garage and get around in a Fiat 500."

"Daniela has been in the sun too long," Briatore, who has dated the likes of Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, fired back. "What she's saying is absurd. If luxury is suddenly a problem let's close Bulgari and Cartier, or even all the discos, restaurants and the whole of the Emerald Coast." That may not be necessary, in any case. The New York Times recently reported that the hotspot has lost a lot of its exclusivity lately and that some recent visitors aren't even millionaires, let alone billionaires.

Philip Treacy's latest creation -- a bright pink abstraction of the breast cancer ribbon -- will be sold exclusively at Selfridges with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Care. Of course Treacy is the milliner behind the boldest fashion statements from the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Moss. He was also the genius who designed Camilla Parker Bowles's matrimonial millinery. Each one of the special "Pink Knot Hats" will be made to order. Contact Selfridges for more information and see philiptreacy.co.uk for his latest ready-to-wear collection.

[via Vogue.com UK]