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Why Karlie Kloss is starting college at 23
In the fall, the Victoria’s Secret Angel, 23, is going to
trade her wings for books when she starts attending classes at NYU’s
Gallatin School of Individual Study.
“I didn’t want to wait until I’m 30 to continue learning and
challenging myself in new ways. I am 23 and at a very busy point in my
career, but I hope it’s just the beginning. I want to do it all,” the
model told Glamour.
Used to being at the top of her field, Kloss is both nervous and excited about her new adventure.
While it’s not the only reason she’s headed to college, the Taylor Swift
pal also realizes she’s a role model for girls and takes that
seriously, which is why she set up the Kode With Karlie scholarship,
which seeks to introduce young girls to the world of computer coding.
“I’m still wrapping my head around it; I do feel a
responsibility to be an example for young women in general,” she said.
“That’s what Kode With Karlie is about: supporting girls to try coding
even if they’re not interested in being a programmer. If I can inspire
one girl to try it, I’ll be happy.”
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Why Nike Is Working With Karlie Kloss
Nike typically chooses athletes over fashion models to front its seasonal campaigns. So why Karlie Kloss?
Karlie Kloss modeling Pedro Lourenço's Nike collaboration. Photo: Nike
Nike
unveiled its spring/summer 2015 women's collection in New York City on
Wednesday, which kicked off with a presentation from Nike CEO Mark
Parker and a small runway presentation with more than two dozen of the
female athletes Nike sponsors — plus models Karlie Kloss, Joan Smalls, Damaris Lewis and Jeneil Williams.
Nike
has worked with a number of fashion models in its 50-year history but
never, so far as we can recall, on the scale it has worked with Kloss,
who fronts Nike's fall campaign and has populated her own Instagram feed
with many a Nike shot as of late. "We will always work with the amazing
athletes, first and foremost," Amy Montagne, vice president and general
manager of Nike's women's division, said in an interview with Fashionista
after the runway presentation. "But we also work with women who are
connected to sport and fitness. And models like Karlie have that strong
connection to sport and fitness."
"We've had some models, not had a model muse
for example, like some designers do," a spokesperson added. "It's more
that models have appeared in the campaign. But it's not a big focus for
us, you're not seeing this model and that model again and again and
again. The interesting thing about Karlie is that she is that athlete
woman. Her fitness is not a diet fitness, it is an exercise fitness,
it's a strength." Adds Montagne: "She's authentic."
Kloss studied ballet when she was younger, and practices it still, alongside regular yoga, ModelFit classes,
running and — of course — Nike Training Club workouts. And it's not
just her long and muscled physique, arguably, that make her a fit for
Nike: She has also smartly branded herself as an athlete, frequently
posting well-composed shots of her workouts on Instagram. Models wanting to land athleticwear campaigns for themselves should take note.
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Karlie Kloss and Christy Turlington: Supermodels Then and Now
Technically,
the term “supermodel” predates the 1980s, but that is when we civilians
first knew who they were: Linda, Naomi and Christy. (Evangelista,
Campbell and Turlington.) Famously called the “Trinity,” they were the
first fashion models to challenge the celebrity of movie stars. And they
were everywhere: not only modeling, but also appearing in music videos,
on talk shows, and palling around together in the pages of celebrity
magazines.
There
have been other supermodels since, but right now, none is as compelling
as Karlie Kloss. At 23, Ms. Kloss is leveraging her success as a model
and large social media following (not to mention the reflected glare of
her BFF-ship with Taylor Swift) into social activism for young women.
Through Kode With Karlie,
Ms. Kloss underwrote 21 computer coding scholarships for girls in 2015.
She has collaborated with Momofuku Milk Bar on Karlie’s Kookies, a line
of vegan cookies sold to benefit hungry children and other charities.
And lest you think her a slacker, she began her freshman year at New
York University this month.
All
of this made her a perfect lunch date for Ms. Turlington Burns, 46, who
scaled back her own modeling career at its height in 1994 to go back to
school. She graduated from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study
at N.Y.U. and continued her studies at the Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health. Later, she married Ed Burns, the filmmaker and
actor, with whom she has two children. In 2010, she founded Every Mother Counts,
a charitable organization dedicated to maternal health, for which she
was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2014.
Over
asparagus risotto and avocado salads at Il Cantinori, the pair
discussed their surprising modeling careers, the effect on their
families, and their shared commitment to education and improving the
lives of women.
Philip Galanes: Christy, I love that you wrote Karlie a college recommendation.
Christy Turlington Burns:
It was all about my crush on Karlie in 500 words. She is going to take
this education and blow it up. She’s so eager and ready and thoughtful
about her next steps.
Karlie Kloss:
The whole idea of believing I could go to college, and model, comes
straight from Christy. It’s a lot to take on, but she did it. But I may
ask for help with homework.
PG: College is one of many similarities between you. Let’s start with the way you were both “discovered” when you were just 13.
KK: You were 13, too?
PG:
Some guy takes a picture of Christy on horseback, and another takes a
shot of Karlie in a charity show at a shopping mall. Presto! You’re
models. Do you ever feel like you were plucked from childhood?
CB:
When I started working, it was just local markets. Miami and Northern
California, where we lived. I was a regular kid with a normal family
life. It wasn’t until I was 15, on my way back from working in Paris,
with my mom. We stopped in New York, and things really started to take
off. But I had to go back to school. After that, I was back and forth a
lot for work.
KK:
It was pretty gradual for me, too. I was discovered at 13, but we lived
in St. Louis, so I worked in Chicago. I did this Abercrombie Kids thing
with Bruce Weber. But he didn’t even know I was there. The dogs were
more important than me. It didn’t explode for me until I was 15 and came
to New York to walk for Calvin [Klein]. Those runway shows can really
catapult you. They put you in front of designers and top editors. And on
the Internet.
PG: Fifteen is still very young.
CB:
But the stuff I missed, I’m happy I missed it. The social part of high
school, I’m not cut out for that. I had a handful of great girlfriends,
but my sisters are my closest friends. Some people just know: I need to
go faster through this period. And I was ready.
PG: Had modeling been on your radar as girls?
KK: Not at all.
CB:
I hadn’t even started reading Seventeen magazine yet. That’s how out of
it I was. But I have an older sister, and when we were asked about
having our pictures taken, she thought it was cool. So, of course, I
did, too.
PG: But 13 is the height of awkwardness. Weren’t you self-conscious in front of the camera?
KK:
Being a 13-year-old girl is tough. There’s a pressure to fit in. And I
was always the odd one out. This odd, tall duck. Taller than the other
kids, taller than the teachers.
CB: Luckily, our industry celebrates that. Someone finally likes your big feet!
KK: But coming to New York and being appreciated for what made me different helped me learn to appreciate myself.
CB:
Having confidence can help — not in your physicality, but as a person. I
felt confident as a horseback rider. And I brought that with me.
KK: For me, it was ballet. You come with a focus.
PG: You’re both the second sister in families of girls.
KK: You’re in the middle, too?
CB: Nobody wants to claim the middle, but I like it.
PG: I would have killed a younger sibling who became a supermodel. Did your success screw up the family dynamic?
KK:
Not really. It was a family affair. My parents and my grandmother,
everyone had to start juggling to figure out who’s coming with me to New
York and Milan, and who’s taking care of everyone else.
CB:
My mom came with me to Paris. The people I was working with were her
age. So she had a great time, and I loved having her to myself.
PG: But that’s what I mean: You two are off in Paris, and your sisters are stuck in geometry. How could they not resent you?
CB:
When I started modeling, my older sister was much more interested in it
than I was. But they told her right away, “You’re not tall enough.” She
was sad, but she was already very popular. And I brought my sisters
everywhere with me. So they got the benefit of it, too.
KK:
Same here. My sisters are always with me. But they also see how hard I
work: getting off a red-eye at 4 a.m. and sleeping for three hours
before I go to work again. They respect that.
CB: And some people, when they get close to the attention, see, “Oh, that’s not for me.” My younger sister is shy.
PG: You started so young; you must have had a lot to learn about fashion and modeling.
KK:
I had a lot of luck. I was the right girl at the right time. But I was
also a sponge. I didn’t talk a lot. I just listened and kept my eyes
open and tried to soak up everything I could.
CB:
Fashion is all about references. All these names being thrown around. I
was like: “Who’s Anna Magnani? What’s ‘La Dolce Vita’?” And I felt it
was my job to learn them. It was an amazing education, and [the fashion
photographer] Steven Meisel was a great teacher. We did so many movie
screenings — with the hair and makeup team and Lori Goldstein, the
stylist. Then we’d play: Let’s do Sophia Loren! I also had a great
experience with Arthur Elgort, who was the first big photographer I
worked with. “Don’t hold your hands like that,” he’d say. I learned so
much from him about light and angles.
KK:
Learning is what makes you better. I had the same experience with
Arthur. He shot my first Teen Vogue story. And he loved that I could
move. I had this ballet background. It’s probably the biggest reason I
have the career I have: I know how to move.
PG: You also had to learn about money. You were earning buckets of it as kids.
CB:
The money kept getting more and more. There was this thing where you
signed a contract with Ford Models and tied yourself to them. And I was
like: “No way! They work for me, not the other way around.” The first
time I signed a contract with Calvin Klein, they advised me not to have
my own lawyer. My parents didn’t know about that area. So I learned by
making mistakes, and eventually I got savvier.
KK:
I remember doing a shoot at Macy’s, after school. I brought my voucher
and got paid $700. The only comparison I had was babysitting — at $6 an
hour.
CB: Go Macy’s!
KK:
Financial independence is empowering. And seeing a world that I
certainly never knew existed. I don’t mean the glamorous life. Seeing
other cities, hearing other languages, tasting other food. But there’s a
responsibility in that, too.
PG: I’m glad you brought that up. Because 10 years into these megacareers ——
KK: Wait! Am I 10 years in?
CB: No. Maybe from being discovered.
KK: (laughing) Don’t age me, Philip!
PG: You both carved out time for education. Did people think you were crazy to walk away from the money?
CB:
I had talked about it for so long, I was like the boy who cried wolf. I
also wasn’t that brave. I had two pretty big contracts when I stopped. I
had already stopped doing runway.
PG: Why was that?
CB:
The traveling, which is so attractive early on, becomes a grind. You
want to have a home life and a relationship. And I was jealous of my
sisters’ experiences in school. I almost had to exhaust myself at
modeling before I could say, “O.K., I’m ready for school.”
KK:
For me, starting so young, I never thought this was going to be my
career. But I’m long-term greedy. I want to do this job for decades, but
I don’t want to burn myself out with it now. Going to school is part of
that balance. There’s so much I want to learn.
PG:
My favorite trick: You’ve both taken success at a job that’s all about
being scrutinized, objectified even, and turned it into a launching pad
for projects that empower women.
KK: Christy paved the way.
CB:
I don’t know about that. But I’ve always searched for ways to turn my
losses into advocacy. When I lost my father to lung cancer, I said: “I’m
not going to be photographed smoking anymore. I don’t believe in it.”
That experience was huge for me.
KK:
I feel a responsibility with success, too. Like: Why wasn’t it the girl
next to me or my sisters? I’ve always worked with philanthropic groups.
But I had my first aha moment when I was 16. I’ve always loved baking. I
bring cookies to shoots. So I’m in this apartment in New York with my
grandma, and I’m baking — because I can’t go out at night — and I have
this idea: Let’s make a healthy version of these cookies and sell them
to benefit hungry kids.
CB: They’re delicious, by the way.
KK: Ten meals for hungry kids with every tin sold.
CB:
It’s very human to want to make an impact, to contribute to the world.
But it’s hard to know the how and why. Like, “Will my small thing make a
difference?”
PG: Was it important that your big projects — maternal health and coding for girls — be about equal rights for women?
KK:
For me, it started with this realization about how much we interact
with technology every single day. No matter what you do. I wanted to
know more. So I took this two-week coding class at the Flatiron School.
And it was mind-blowing — like: “Whoa! This is how apps work; this is
how my phone works.” I thought, “I want to share this with other girls.”
PG: Because coding is such a male-dominated profession?
KK:
Like 80 percent. It’s very disproportionately male. That’s why it’s
even more important to get girls involved. Technology and apps are the
future, and I want girls to be a part of it.
CB:
We think about this all the time at Every Mother Counts. Could we come
up with an app to connect mothers to each other and health providers?
But it’s hard to dream when you don’t know how things work.
KK:
And if you understand the basics, you can understand the possibilities.
So the call to action I put out there was creating access to coding for
girls. Anybody interested in a scholarship, send me a video and tell me
why.
PG: I watched the video from the girl who wanted to make an app for her autistic brother, tears streaming down my face.
KK: The nonwinners will blow you away, too.
CB: It must have been so hard to narrow it down.
KK: I just want every girl and boy to know about the opportunities that exist out there.
PG: Which parallels Every Mother Counts.
CB:
To me, every life has equal value. I had a scary complication during
childbirth. And later, I learned that many women don’t have access to
the simple care that saved my life. That was a huge realization. Every
woman should be able to bring her child into the world safely. You don’t
need the best obstetrician, but you do need access to information and
education.
PG: Do many women die in childbirth?
CB:
The estimates now are just under 300,000 annually [worldwide], mostly
girls between 15 and 19. But 98 percent of those deaths are preventable.
And for every woman who dies, there are 20 to 30 others who nearly die,
or suffer lifelong disability, infertility or other complications.
KK: That’s a lot of women.
CB: So many of them don’t have the economic independence to get the quality of care that they should have access to.
PG: That’s what your projects have in common: giving voices to people who don’t have them.
KK:
I feel really lucky to be a 20-year-old right now with my life ahead of
me. I have opportunities that didn’t exist for my mom, and certainly
didn’t exist for her mom. I want us all to have them.
CB:
And when you surround yourself with people who are doing incredible
things, they inspire you — your friends, your peers, your family — every
day. They raise the bar for everyone.
KK: Can we have lunch together every day?
PG: After you finish your homework.
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Joan Smalls & Karlie Kloss: Super Modern Supermodels
Meet two glamorous girls who are not just sitting pretty.
“Hang on…me?” But the girl, it must be said, is noticeable, waving animatedly from a stool at One Lucky Duck, a raw-food shop in Manhattan’s Chelsea Market, all six feet one inch of her unfolding like an elongated, enchanting dragonfly. Kloss and Joan Smalls have spent the day across the street being photographed by Steven Meisel, and you get the feeling that the two cover models, who together represent the new face of fashion, may just have to get used to being recognized.
Marc Jacobs has named a bag for Kloss. Smalls’s feline frame was immortalized in this year’s Pirelli calendar and in yellow jeans on a giant Calvin Klein billboard above Manhattan’s Houston Street. These are the signs of certified critical-mass appeal, and yet to each, in her own way, it’s all still somehow unexpected.
“Let’s be honest,” says Kloss. “I think it’s the fact that I’m eight inches above the average person walking down the street. I’m somewhat in my own cloud.” At 19, she already knows how to be disarmingly self-deprecating, but yes, let’s be honest, it’s not just her meteorological height that attracts attention. Kloss also happens to have the face of a fairy, with a small constellation of freckles on her right cheek, and the kinetic effervescence of a sprite.
When Kloss was growing up in St. Louis, the discipline of ballet training provided a positive charge for her lightning-bolt limbs. “You learn to control every aspect of your muscles, your face, your toes, your fingernails,” she says. “And that is how you tell a story, through movement.” Her first shoot in New York, at 14, was with Arthur Elgort, who photographed her doing a split on a ballet bar.
She might look like a living line drawing—one encased in custom-made 3×1 pants, the first jeans she’s ever had that actually touch the ground—but it took Kloss a long time to “own it,” she says.
“My sisters have always been these gorgeous glamazons, and I’m, like, this tall skinny stick in the family. And I still am the tall girl, even on the runways. Every time I see Karl Lagerfeld, he’s always, like”—she puts on a German accent—“ ‘Karlie, have you stopped growing yet? Are you taller?’ ” She laughs loudly. “It used to be something that I really disliked about myself, being tall and lanky, but it turned out to be the greatest asset I have—how uniquely weird I am.”
Anyone who has seen Joan Smalls stalk the runway like a warrior goddess might not think that she ever needed any kind of encouragement—but what she did need was the chance to convince others. “When I first started,” Smalls says, “it never picked up for me, doing shows.” That changed when Riccardo Tisci booked her to walk the Givenchy Couture runway exclusively at the 2010 fall collections. “He saw my potential,” she says. “And it changed people’s perspective.”
She’s now so well known for that regal mien that it’s almost a surprise to discover just how playful she can be. After the shoot, when she’s leaving the set, rocker-chic in a baseball jacket and Helmut Lang leather pants, Smalls rides down in the elevator with the assistants. Holding the door for them, she snaps her fingers, teasingly telling them to “C’mon, hurry, hurry, hurry!” before falling into a gale of giggles.
“People don’t expect me to have a girly voice when they see me walk like that. They might not think that I’m funny,” Smalls remarks. She pulls off the false eyelashes that were applied for the shoot and says, laughing, “I feel much better.” But with her tilted, seductive eyes, she looks as though she’s still wearing the fake lashes. Smalls, who grew up in the countryside of Puerto Rico, gets the “What is she?” question a lot. She takes out her iPhone to show the spectrum of skin shades in her family. (Her mother is a fair Puerto Rican; her father is black, from St. Thomas.) “I’m a little bit of everything,” she says. “Sometimes people think I’m not Puerto Rican, because my name doesn’t sound Spanish.”
But as if there were any doubt, the 23-year-old boricua proved her birthright on the shoot. “They put on Hector Lavoe, the famous Puerto Rican salsa singer, and I started dancing in my six-inch stilettos,” she explains. “They had me jumping, I was dropping it to the floor, I was whipping the jacket in the air. But you have to have coordination, to know where the camera is, to make sure you give a good angle, because sometimes you do weird faces when you dance”—she illustrates, biting her lips and scrunching up her nose—“and you have to realize you’re still working!”
For both Kloss and Smalls, making that kind of effort look perfectly effortless is all in a day’s work. “I just have something to prove,” Smalls says. “I know I’m representing a group—black, Latin, whatever you want to put me with—and I want to show that they are beautiful the way they are. I think that’s really important for our youth to see. Fashion is part of our culture,” she says. “And it’s about more than just a pretty dress.”
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Supermodel Karlie Kloss Talks Taylor Swift, Wearing Dior to Prom, and Life Off the Runway
She's already conquered the modeling world. But Karlie Kloss, 23, has a lot more planned: There's college. And a video channel. Oh, and teaching an entire generation of women to code! She sits down with friend Derek Blasberg to explain her Nice Person's Guide to Changing the World.
Read an excerpt of her cover interview below. To read the full interview, pick up the September issue of Glamour on newsstands starting August 4, subscribe, or download it for your tablet now!
Karlie has always been the sort of girl who thinks “family first” is a better motto than “first class.”
Her ascent began at 13, when she walked in a St. Louis charity fashion show and caught the eye of a local scout, who brought her to an agency in New York City. That’s when her career took off in a way that can only be described as a fashion fairy tale: In September 2007, one month after her 15th birthday, she appeared in her first New York show, for Calvin Klein. The following spring she walked on more than 31 runways in New York alone. Then came big breaks in campaigns for Christian Dior and Marc Jacobs, and a stint as a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Today she has a much-coveted gig as a face of L’Oréal Paris—and a spot on Forbes’ Highest-Paid Models list.
And that’s just her day job. In 2012 Karlie founded a line of vegan, gluten-free baked goods that raises money for the Feed charity. This past summer, after taking a coding course (that’s right—during the summer!), she established the Kode With Karlie scholarship, which aims to get young women involved in the world of technology. Later this year she’s launching her own YouTube channel—and this month she’s heading back to school as a college freshman at New York University.
DEREK BLASBERG: My little sister is all grown-up and going off to college. Why now?
KARLIE KLOSS: I didn’t want to wait until I’m 30 to continue learning and challenging myself in new ways. I am 23 and at a very busy point in my career, but I hope it’s just the beginning. I want to do it all.
DB: What will you study at NYU?
KK: Like most kids starting college, my major is still “undecided.”Next year will be a big balancing act—but how exciting! I haven’t written a paper in years, so I may be calling you for homework help.
DB: Did you ever take that BuzzFeed quiz I emailed you: “Are You More Cara Delevingne or Karlie Kloss?”
KK: Yep. And you’ll be relieved to know that I got Karlie Kloss.
DB: Phew! I got Cara Delevingne.
KK: I am very confused how you got Cara. Should I be offended?
DB: According to BuzzFeed, “[Karlie Kloss] is as sweet as apple pie.” They say you’re “an amazing friend and always put others before yourself.” Have you ever wanted to shake off that image of being fashion’s sweetest supermodel?
KK: There are worse things than being called sweet. And I think the way that both you and I were raised was to be grateful to people. I’m a nice girl, and I’ve embraced it.
DB: You do have a lot of friends. FYI: This is when I ask you about Taylor Swift.
KK: And here we go! Taylor and I met at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show two years ago. [Model] Lily Aldridge introduced us. She was like, “OK, you two are kindred spirits. How have my two nice American friends never met?” And that was it.
DB: Immediate BFFs?
KK: Our friendship is the same as yours and mine. Many of my closest friends are traveling all the time, so it takes constant effort—texting, Facetiming—on all ends to maintain close relationships.
DB: Let’s talk about that “Bad Blood” video. Selena Gomez, Hailee Steinfeld, Cara, Lena Dunham, and you: It was four minutes of major celebrity cameos. That couldn’t have been easy.
KK: But how often do you get to work with all your best friends on such a fun project? I think Taylor is the only person who could’ve pulled something like that off.
DB: Like Taylor, you’re becoming a role model for young girls. How does that feel?
KK: I’m still wrapping my head around it; I do feel a responsibility to be an example for young women in general. That’s what Kode With Karlie is about: supporting girls to try coding even if they’re not interested in being a programmer. If I can inspire one girl to try it, I’ll be happy.
[ … ]
DB: I remember you doing schoolwork backstage at shows. I thought it was wonderful how you managed to exist in both the fashion world and the real world.
KK: It was a bizarre double life…but at school no one really cared. It’s not like anyone in my high school was reading Vogue Italia.
DB: What did you wear to prom?
KK: I knew you were going to ask me that! Yes, I wore Dior couture to my prom. I probably peaked at my prom, and it’s all downhill from there. [Laughs.] I should say, though, that I wouldn’t have considered myself a high-fashion high-schooler. I lived in a ballet bun and comfy clothes. I still opt for comfort, even today.
DB: How has the business of fashion changed since you started?
KK: Social media. The fashion industry has had to become less elitist and more accessible. When I started, only a few hundred people could see a fashion show live. Now anyone with a computer and Internet access can. It’s put a bigger spotlight on what we do.
DB: Which, I think, has been good for fashion and good for models.
KK: It’s been a great thing for my career but also as an individual, because I get to show my personality.
DB: Do you ever read the comments? Do you get those nasty trolls?
KK: I read some of them, sure. The vast majority of comments are positive. But there are bullies out there. I’ve learned to ignore them. Because in my life, that’s just noise.
For more of Karlie Kloss’s life as a supermodel—including what her life was like when she first arrived in New York—pick up the September issue of Glamour on newsstands starting August 4, subscribe now, or download the digital edition.
Derek Blasberg is the author of Classy: Exceptional Advice for the Extremely Modern Lady.
Ever wonder how the September issue gets on the newsstands? Karlie Kloss shows us.
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