Naomi Campbell: Happy Birthday Little Sister Kate

Family aside, there aren't many people who know Kate Moss as well as Naomi Campbell. In fact, with a 25-year-long friendship under their belt, Campbell believes that they're as close as real siblings. Moss, who turns 40 today, is three years younger than her supermodel peer.

"She's like my little sister, and 40 or not she's still my little sister," Campbell said. "We even have nicknames for each other - but I don't think she'd want me to tell you! She's honest, loyal and straightforward. There's no bullshit. She's not pretentious in any way. What you see is what you get and I love that about her."

Kate & Naomi

The pair first met in 1992, when Moss was 15 and Campbell was 18. Together with Christy Turlington, Campbell took the shy ingénue "under her wing" and they let her live in between their respective apartments in Paris and New York. They travelled as a two, talked about boys, cooked roast dinners, talk their way into gigs and would always make the effort to see one another at birthdays and Christmas. They became, as Campbell describes, a "backbone of support for each other". And, Moss was always on hand to offer style advice.

"She'd sometimes tell us how to dress, 'You need to be a bit more funky and downbeat,' she'd say. On her advice, I once wore Adidas sneakers with a Galliano dress, which in retrospect was an appalling faux pas," recalled Campbell. "I realised that Kate could get away with things that the rest of us couldn't."

She credits her friend for being spontaneous and fun, but also a "great mother" and someone who she can always rely on. She also comments on Moss as being "very shy at times - If she doesn't know you she doesn't speak."

"Perhaps what I love best about Kate is that she tries to keep the child within her, I would never want to her to lose it," she said. "Yes, she's 40, I'm 43, but it's always great to have your child in you," Campbell wrote for  The Evening Standard. "It's that vulnerability that makes you special, that makes you do the creative things, she so has that and when we're together it comes out. We're like we're at secondary school. That's what happens with girlfriends who've grown up together. That's the charm of friendship."