A celebrity doppelganger who duped people into thinking she was Kate Moss at the Paris Fashion Show is actually a model and mother from Ormskirk who has thanked ‘fans’ for their interest – but how tricky is it to differentiate between the pair?
Supermodel Kate’s uncanny lookalike stormed the runway at the Marine Serre Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show yesterday.
While many have been tricked into thinking it was the real Kate Moss, 50, it was actually someone who dubs herself ‘Fake Moss’ – 43-year-old mother-of-two Denise Ohnona, from Ormskirk in Lancashire.
While Kate was launched as a fashion superstar as a teenager, Denise has only been modelling professionally for the past six years – after enduring not only a tricky divorce but also a traumatic car collision that left her with lasting scars.
And while Kate has embraced a glittering transatlantic hard-partying lifestyle – before launching her own wellness brand of products – Denise says she is happy to focus on being a mum while enjoying the attention as a lookalike.
Kate Moss’ uncanny lookalike Denise Ohnona stormed the runway at the Marine Serre Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show on Monday
Will the real Kate Moss please standup? Kate is pictured, left, at the Bottega Veneta Winter 24 show in Milan, Italy, last month, while Denise is seen, right, at Paris Fashion Week
Denise, pictured, has told how being compared to Kate Moss helped her recover after divorce
The real Kate Moss is seen here leaving an Yves Saint Laurent after-party
Eco-brand Marine Serre appeared to take inspiration from budget supermarket Aldi who pulled a similar stunt using Denise just weeks earlier.
When stars were descending on Manchester for a Chanel show last December, ‘Kate’ was papped carrying a 65p bag from the supermarket – although it was later revealed to be Denise in disguise.
She has her own Instagram account called @iamnotkatemoss, with 67,400 followers, in which she replicates famous catwalk appearances and adverts by the real Kate – enjoying her moments in the spotlight after suffering upsetting setbacks in the past.
She recently told the Times how she was thrown from a car driven by a then-boyfriend in October 1998, smashing her face through the windscreen.
She described how the doctor who operated on her had not been trained in plastic surgery and she endured the effects of surplus collagen production and thick scars.
Denise said: ‘The first time I saw a mirror I collapsed on the floor in screams.’
As she struggled with what she described as ‘a mental breakdown’, her weight plunged to five and a half stone and she suffered stomach ulcers.
She later spent some time living in America, in Orange County, where she worked in telecoms and got married in Las Vegas – but she and her husband divorced in 2011.
She has said she gained weight after becoming depressed and losing interest in going to the gym – only to become inspired to get fit again by people pointing out her resemblance to Kate Moss.
It seemed Marine Serre took inspiration from budget supermarket Aldi who pulled a similar stunt, this time in Manchester, last December
Denise shared images and videos from her fittings on Instagram, where she goes by the handle ‘I Am Not Kate Moss’
The real Kate Moss, pictured here, has also been at this year’s Paris Fashion Week – here attending the Saint Lauren Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show last week
This week’s runway show decision by the eco brand was captured on Denise’s social media
Denise previously told Mail Online:When I split up with my ex-husband eight years ago, I went a bit ‘mumsy,’ I lost my sense of fashion and gave up on the gym.
‘I would look after the kids day and night and it was more important to run around after them than look after myself. Then I started getting people mistaking me for Kate Moss when I would go anywhere.
‘Being told that I could look like Kate Moss picked me back up and I started focusing on myself again. I got back into the gym and looking after my appearance and the comments started all over again!’
During her appearance in Paris on Monday, Denise harked back to Kate’s indie days in an oversized leather jacket emblazoned with the brand’s crescent moon-shaped logo with a matching handbag.
She wore heavy black eye make-up while her trademark dirty blonde locks were worn in loose waves to add to the indie ensemble.
Denise’s Instagram posts have included miming to the sound of Moss’s testimony at Johnny Depp’s court case battle with Amber Depp.
She has also been photographed in the window of a McDonald’s, playing on Kate’s famous quote suggesting ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’.
Despite her lookalike work, she describes herself as a full-time mum to daughters Elise, 13, and eight-year-old Anais.
Denise said: ‘When I first started to get papped, I used to get very shy and felt like a fraud became I am a Fake Moss.
Denise’s likeness to Kate is regularly highlighted both in public and on social media
The real Kate Moss is seen her modelling John Galliano in Paris in October 1993
Denise’s leather look stole Monday’s show as she headed down the runway
‘But then as time went on I started to enjoy it and now find it very flattering – who wouldn’t want to get mistaken for Kate Moss? She’s one of the most incredibly iconic women ever!
‘I get mistaken for her on a daily basis now – especially when I am out in central London – that’s where the paps tend to find me.
‘However even members of the public get us confused, and I get asked to pose for selfies in nightclubs and in the supermarket all the time.
‘It’s amazing that I’ve been able to find something that has transformed me from my frumpy mum lifestyle, to a glamorous “supermodel”.’
From love life to divorces, children, modelling careers and social media fans: How ‘Fake Moss’ and the REAL Kate Moss compare after celebrity doppelganger fooled the world at Paris Fashion Week
Their physical resemblance is strikingly similar and they both work as models, yet the lives of Kate Moss and ‘Fake Moss’ Denise Ohnona have taken very different turns.
They come from different ends of England, have varying heights, weights, ages and dress sizes, but have experiences in common, including parenthood and divorce.
Mail Online provides a head-to-head look at the two women with familiar faces…
From: Croydon, south London
Age: 50
Height: 5ft 7in
Weight: 121lb/55kg
Dress size: 8
Career: Supermodel since the age of 14, she also now promotes her own wellness brand Cosmoss
Instagram followers: 1.6million
Children: Lila, 21, also a model
Kate Moss, right, is seen here with daughter Lila at a Paris show in January this year
Love life: Married to musician Jamie Hince between 2011 and 2016; ex-boyfriends include actor Johnny Depp and Dazed and Confused co-founder Jefferson Hack, father of her daughter
Johnny Depp and Kate Moss dated between 1994 and 1998
Jefferson Hack, left, is the father of Kate’s model daughter Lila
Setbacks: She was dropped from some fashion campaigns in 2005 after pictures were published appearing to show her snorting campaign
Clothing: Kate has modelled for brands including Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, Chanel, Dior, Louis Vutton and Dolce and Gabbana
Kate was 17 when she advertised Calvin Klein jeans in 1992
‘Fake Moss’
From: Ormskirk, Lancashire
Age: 43
Height: 5ft 4in
Weight: 105lb/48kg
Dress size: 6
Career: Worked in a Liverpool branch of Next, then on the docks checking containers and filling out forms
Instagram followers: 67,400
Children: Elise, 13, and Anais, eight
Denise is pictured here with daughter Elise, who is now 13
Love life: She married her husband in a Las Vegas chapel but they got divorced in 2011 and she now lives with her partner of ten years, a music producer named Robert
Denise lives with her family in Ormskirk in Lancashire, 13 miles north of Liverpool
She is frequently stopped in public by locals telling her she looks like Kate Moss
Setbacks: She suffered severe scarring after being thrown through a car windscreen in October 2008 after the vehicle driven by her then-boyfriend collided with a bus after she worked a shift as a Next retail assistant
Clothing: Denise says she gets most of the clothes she wears to model as ‘Fake Moss’ from charity shops such as Oxfam and on eBay
Denise is seen preparing for her runway appearance for Marine Serre this week