Imperfectly perfect: Kate Moss at 40

She rarely talks in public, is appalled by the idea of joining Twitter and yet her sinewy bow legs and the mole on her breast are instantly recognisable on their own terms. The woman, whose mantra is "never complain, never explain", which former boyfriend Johnny Depp is said to have advised her to live by, is unquestionably the most famous model in the world.

Kate Moss, the daughter of a barmaid and a travel agent, turned 40 on January 16 and although she has been the object of our gaze for 25 years, she shows no sign of losing her place at the top of the most fickle of industries.

Despite her immense wealth - between October 2011 and October 2012 her wages totalled £11.72 million (HK$150 million) - and her recent accolade at the British Fashion Awards in recognition of her extraordinary contribution to the British fashion industry, there are no signs of early retirement. Moss chose to celebrate her 40th birthday with a shoot in Playboy, for the magazine's 60th anniversary edition, wearing the full bunny get-up - silky ears, bobtail and cuffs - and shot by top fashion photography duo Mert & Marcus. The Mail Online website thigh-rubbingly described the 18-page shoot as "showing off her razor-sharp cheekbones, and her still slender figure". The semaphored message from inside the impenetrable Moss camp was: Still Got It.

But 2014 will not just be about modelling for Moss. She will reprise her role as designer at multinational retailer Topshop. She will become the first model to appear on British Vogue's masthead as contributing fashion editor. Her first shoot will appear in a spring issue and, according to insiders, the photographs will genuinely represent Moss as a working fashion editor rather than depicting the ghost-styling work of someone else.

Alexandra Shulman, the magazine's editor, says: "She came in recently to go through her rail for her first shoot and what I realised was that when she talked about the clothes she completely understood what it was about each item that makes it special. She could show some-thing which you felt indifferent to, but when she talked about each item you see them in a different light. All good fashion editors can breathe life into a rail of clothes, but it is unusual for a model to be able to do that. To see that made me optimistic about what she will be like as a stylist."

Moss wasn't born to be a modelling legend. On paper, with her snaggle-tooth and her 1.73-metre frame, the odds on the 14-year-old from Croydon, south London, enjoying an unparalleled catwalk career were stacked against her, particularly as "Amazonian supermodel" was the aesthetic at the time she was spotted. But a chance meeting with model agent Sarah Doukas at JFK Airport, New York, in the United States, catapulted her from schoolgirl to the model who has appeared on the cover of British Vogue 34 times - more than anyone else.