Casey Neistat Introduces Shorty Phenom Award Winner Karlie Kloss
Shorty Awards
Published on Apr 25, 2017
Casey Neistat introduces Karlie Kloss, winner of the Shorty Phenom Award at the 9th Annual Shorty Awards for Kode with Klossy.
Karlie Kloss Accepts the Shorty Phenom
Shorty Awards
Published on Apr 25, 2017
Karlie Kloss accepts her Shorty Phenom honor for her work with Kode with Klossy, her charity that encourages young girls to pursue their interest in computer science and coding.
Photo: Emily Soto
by Lindsey Metrus
January 24, 2017
The first time I ever met Karlie Kloss was last year at an event—she was making her way down the red carpet, graciously stopping, smiling, and shaking hands with each journalist eagerly lined up to nab a sound bite from the two minutes we had with the statuesque model. I ask her a question I’ve asked several other celebrities: “How do you balance it all?”
I often expect the same answer: They find time for exercise, sleep, healthy food, and socializing to maintain a sort of internal homeostasis. But Karlie’s answer instantly threw me for a loop.
“After dinner tonight, I will be at my kitchen table writing a paper. I have a huge paper due tomorrow, so that’ll be fun. It’s for a writing class. But like every woman, I multitask and make it work.”
I knew Kloss was attending NYU, but it didn’t even cross my mind that after posing for photographers in a couture gown while representing a billion-dollar cosmetic company she’d have to go home and… type up a term paper. She may have likened herself to “every woman,” but Kloss’s schedule is certainly in the minority.
Today, I got to speak with the supermodel once again, this time because she’s the new face of Carolina Herrera’s latest fragrance, Good Girl ($115). It seems to be a fitting campaign for Kloss, given her inherently good nature: Her gluten-free vegan cookie line, Klossies, donate proceeds to FEED Projects, a company that helps bring meals to children in need, and her summer camp, Kode with Klossy, is a free two-week program that teaches girls aged 13 to 18 how to build apps and code. But this is all my own perception, of course, so I ask Kloss what she thinks constitutes being a good girl.
“It’s someone who has a duality to her—she is not one-dimensional. For me, I always strive to be professional, to work hard, and to learn something new every day. But at the same time, I also like to have fun, to live my life and have a sense of humor about everything. Being a good girl doesn’t mean you have to be boring. It’s been really special to work with Mrs. Herrera and her team on a project that is now six years in the making. I resonated with the character of the Good Girl and her dynamic approach to all aspects of life: her career, hobbies, personal life, and everything she gracefully balances. Mrs. Herrera and her daughters are brilliant, beautiful, and empowered women who embody the spirit of Good Girl—I’m inspired by their powerful femininity and honored to help bring the Good Girl to life. The fragrance is exactly what it symbolizes: sweet white floral notes with an undertone of spice and mystery—a good girl gone bad.”
With each passing minute of our conversation, Kloss speaks eloquently and passionately about her career, her life, and her health, leaning in with her forearms on her thighs, hands clasped together, speaking in a quiet, whisper-like tone, like we’re sharing a secret with one another (despite the fact that there are publicists, photographers, and assistants within ear shot of us). She’s so mature, in fact, that I forget she’s just 24 years old—two years my junior. What I discover in our time together is her thirst for learning, her desire to help people, and her simple approach to leading a happy, balanced life.
Karlie Kloss: “This job is one that requires a lot of hard work, a lot of travel, a lot of time by yourself on an airplane [or] in a hotel. You have to be really strong, you have to be really independent, and you have to have endurance. You know, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, which is pretty crazy to think because I’m just now 24, but at the same time, I feel like I’ve learned so much and become so much stronger because of the challenges that I’ve faced building a career at an early age and learning an industry from the ground up.
“My beauty look is always evolving. What’s great about beauty is that you can take risks and be very experimental because your hair grows back and you can always change up your look at the end of the day.
“[If I could be anything other than a model, I’d be] Karlie Kloss, MD, like my dad—he’s a doctor. I wish I were an astronaut. There are so many things I would add [after my name]. So far, I have student and aspiring computer engineer. Learning to code is something I’m very, very adamant about, and I love to encourage other girls to get into computer science. I think it’s such an empowering skill set—you really can do so much with this knowledge of understanding how to build something. It can be a really creative skill set as well, so that’s one thing I’m really excited about—working with girls who have been a part of my program and many more girls who we hope to include going forward. You know, you can work in fashion or have a passion for fashion or art and also be even more set up for success when pairing that creativity with the kind of technical problem solving that coding is.
“I definitely would like to think of myself as an entrepreneur. I think it’s a mindset, you know? It’s a mindset of thinking outside the box. I very much love the idea of being a philanthropist, but more than anything else, I just like to help people. I feel really, really lucky in my life, so I like to share opportunities with others because I’m fortunate to be in the position to do that.
“My favorite credential is being a student. I love to learn. I think that my whole life, even long after I hopefully someday graduate from NYU—because I’m just a part-time student, I’m slowly working my way—but I think a student of life is something that I’m very proud to be, and I hope that I always have that kind of curiosity.”
“What I’ve definitely learned as a girl, and then as a woman, is that there’s constantly a relationship with your own body. It’s a relationship with learning what works for you, and for me. I’ve been a model for almost 10 years, and so in that time, my body grows and changes and I have to learn how to take care of myself.
“When I first started modeling, I ate Snickers bars for breakfast lunch and dinner —I didn’t know about nutrition, or really, I always just had a super-fast metabolism. But also, because my body was maturing and growing up, I had to learn how to eat a more balanced diet. And I really learned and got excited about baking and cooking with healthy ingredients, fresh ingredients, a more balanced diet of vegetables and protein, and learning what it means to actually eat clean. In doing so, I not only feel better in my body and more confident in my body, but I also have so much more energy. That has been a whole other education.
“I’m big on drinking lots of water. I don’t drink coffee after three o’clock because I really try and sleep. Sleep is another thing—I feel like my mom harping on a balanced diet and sleep and water—it’s so true! The answers are actually so easy, but it’s more just the self-discipline of sticking to them. I really like to eat a lot of fish. I love to eat a lot of vegetables, and I love a good protein shake after a workout. I don’t eat meat, so protein and just getting the right nutrients is key. That and trying to eliminate as much stress from my life as possible.”
“I always love to indulge in a really great facial, probably two days before an event—I especially want to make sure I have time to heal. I really love to do even just an at-home mask. If I’m going to a red carpet and I don’t have time to get a facial, I love to exfoliate and do a mask to really hydrate my skin. I’m a big fan of the under-eye patches, too.
“I think all of us in our day-to-day lives, you know, we are all constantly on—we are all constantly connected through email, through social media, through the news. I think my schedule happens to be especially demanding with travel and all the things I have going on, but I think we all face this. I think taking time to detach… For me that’s key, you know? Really making time to take care of myself, to exercise, is ironically relaxing to me because it actually allows me to kind of just have a natural release of endorphins and release of stress. I really like to meditate. I’m not really good about routine because my days are always so different, so I have this app called Headspace, and I love to just plug my headphones in. And in 10 minutes, if I’m in the car or if I’m going to class or work or wherever I’m going, I just need 10 minutes in the morning to kind of totally chill out and get centered and get focused for the day.
“I have an amazing makeup artist—his name is Hung Vanngo, and he is the master of all brows. He helped me create this shape today, but I learned early on not to over-pluck them—I think that’s one thing a lot of people really make a mistake with.
“I love this trend, or at least over the last few years, it really came into a trend, this healthy brow, and so I definitely appreciate every hair and try not to over-pluck them. But I love a good, really thin brow pencil, or a really, really, really tiny brush, like a liquid pen but very natural and matching it to your skin color. So if you have a great arch where you have patches, where you want it to be more full, or if your brow is too short and you want to kind of extend it, you can use really anything. If you use a pencil, you want it to be really sharp because, essentially, you want to just draw in the hairs and also use something with a brush on the other end, which I learned the name of is actually a spoolie. What a great word. But I think it’s such an important feature—even if you’re not wearing a ton of foundation or concealer or a smoky eye or a red lip, a strong brow goes a long way.”
Vogue Australia Factbook Live with Karlie Kloss on January 31, 2017
We’re live with Karlie Kloss ahead of her debut on the David Jones runway in Sydney
DAY 31: Karlie Kloss by Phil Poynter #LOVEADVENT2017
LOVE TV by LOVE Magazine
Published on Dec 31, 2017
Helping us say farewell to 2017, Karlie Kloss has chosen basketball as her Stay Strong sport. She shows us that sporty can still be sexy.
“This year’s LOVE Advent calendar theme is all about celebrating what makes us strong. Whether it’s mental or physical, being strong is sexy, which is at the heart of this campaign.’
Inspired by and designed for you.
With her unfeasibly long legs,
incomparable feline strut and bright blue eyes, it’s no surprise that
Karlie Kloss is one of our favorite Vogue Paris muses. When she isn’t
rocking the Fashion Week runways or posing in photo shoots, the model
can be found at home in Manhattan. A new generation supermodel shares
her favorite addresses in the Big Apple.
For coffee: The Little Cupcake Bakeshop for delicious coffee and cupcakes.
Your favorite market: The Gansevoort Market in the West Village.
Where do you work out: Either at home with my trainer, Justin Gelband, or at Equinox gym.
Your favorite place for a healthy lunch: The Egg Shop or the The Butcher’s Daughter.
A gallery or museum: The National History Museum or the MOMA.
Your favorite tourist spot: The Highline.
Your favorite bookshop: Bookmarc, the Marc Jacobs bookstore.
The best place to grab a burger: The Polo Bar.
Your favorite music venue: Terminal 5.
For who or what would you cross the city: A dinner with Derek Blasberg.
An unusual night out: A Japanese restaurant called Tomoe Sushi.
Where do you go to escape the city: Upstate New York or to St.Louis to spend time with my family.
Your secret escape: My West Village apartment.
What can you do or see, only in New York: All vegan burger joints. (x)
I love following Karlie Kloss (on Instagram) because she’s got such an amazing work ethic. She’s incredibly intelligent, she’s working on coding I think at the moment at university. She’s just a really decent person and I love talking to her, she fills me with joy. So follow her!
The model millennial
Karlie Kloss is the epitome of the ideal American millennial woman. Since being discovered at 13, she has become a major model and a 34-time Vogue cover girl. I’ve worked with her on many campaigns, as I love her personality and the fact that she is her own woman. In spite of becoming financially independent at a very young age, Karlie continues to study and improve herself while remaining very close to her family in St. Louis.
Passionate and fearless, Karlie has also become a full-fledged entrepreneur: she shares her stories and others’ on her YouTube channel Klossy. She collaborated with Warby Parker to benefit Edible Schoolyard NYC. She supports young women learning to code, all while continuing her long-standing partnership with Momofuku Milk Bar to benefit Feed and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. As a model, a businesswoman, a young philanthropist and a force on social media, she doesn’t just connect with her generation—she leads it, inspiring young women around the world to become the women they want to be, just as she has done so beautifully. (x)
At an Amazonian 6ft 1in, 23-year-old American-by-way-of -St-Louis-Missouri, Karlie Kloss folds herself into the backseat of the car that will take her from her London hotel residence of less than 24 hours to her fitting for the outfit she will wear to Topshop Unique’s London Fashion Week show the next day. “Oh, there I am,” she exclaims cheerily in her mellifluous Midwestern sing-song accent as we pull up outside Topshop HQ, where a giant floor-to-ceiling billboard of her is facing the street.
In an industry that is notoriously fickle, and careers shortlived, with the majority of models coming and going in an anonymous abyss, Kloss has weathered an impressive eight-year stint, and become one of the world’s most highly paid, recognisable and bookable faces.
That she can do both edgy and girl-next-door helps. She recalls a fashion show season where “it was all about bleached eyebrows. I’d have them bleached in the morning, then drawn back, then bleached off again later. I remember going back to school with no eyebrows, and my friends were like, ‘What parallel universe do you go to?’” Modelling, in some ways, requires a lack of vanity: “You have to be able to transform, let go a little bit, and be OK with that,” says Kloss.
She is quite mesmerising in person, all golden skin tones and soft, green eyes, as well as being endearingly polite, eloquent and charming. For someone who’s starred in her friend Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood music video (and is a key member of the world’s most fawned-over “girl squad” with Kendall Jenner, Lena Dunham, Gigi Hadid and Swift) and swept down a Victoria’s Secret catwalk, she does not appear to have starlet-syndrome or even much of an ego.
She’s sharp and clever. As much as she talks of “the effortless cool” of English girls and Kate Moss, she is clued-up on the business side of the industry, and has as keen an interest in that as in the creative elements. “I’ve always had a very professional approach” she says.
She is shrewd on the value of her star reach, saying of her four-million strong Instagram following: “It’s part of what you have to bring to a brand. It’s added layers to the job title and what it means to be a model.”
You don’t, however, get to be name-dropped as a supermodel without fostering a style-signature. For Kloss, this is her prowling, balletic (eight years of lessons as a child) runway walk. “There are people who really like my walk, and others who think I look absolutely ridiculous. In my mind I’m doing the same thing as the other girls: look focused, look at the end of the runway, put your shoulders back, stand up tall, be confident,” she laughs. “Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it works against me.”
As the star of its latest advertising campaign, her image is currently being beamed out of every Topshop store and bus stop near you, as well as online (naturally). She has now ascended to the status where she can watch a fashion show from the front row with her fellow A-listers, rather than doing the hard work of schlepping down the catwalk.
At Sunday’s Unique show, she giggled next to her British best friend and fellow mega-model, Jourdan Dunn, who she met, fittingly, on her first significant campaign shoot for the high street label at the start of her career. “I kind of watched what Jourdan was doing and thought, ‘OK, I’ll do the same’,” she says.
From this, her career sky-rocketed, and there is barely a brand whose show she hasn’t walked in: Calvin Klein, Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen… As well as having fronted coveted campaign slots for DVF, Oscar de la Renta, Versace and L’Oréal, to name but a few.
The fashion world is currently reeling from – and catching up with – the rampant demands of an online world. Does Kloss think that magazines, whose circulations are dwarfed by her and her friends’ number of Instagram followers, are still relevant? She nods her head. “Absolutely. When you work with magazines, you create images which aren’t for campaigns, you don’t have to hold a bag a certain way to sell it. It’s about an idea. It’s in the vein of creating art. I don’t think magazines or runway shows are going to disappear, but the way people absorb media and communicate has changed.”
What hasn’t changed, however, is the scrutiny that the women in her industry are under. “I’ve had to learn how to transition from being a 15-year-old girl who was super tall and slim and ate candy and pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner, to when my body started to change and I had to completely relearn how to think about food and exercise,” she says. “There’s pressure to be a certain shape or size because the clothing is a certain shape or size. As a model, you want to be booked in the show or in the campaign, so you have to fit the clothing. I’m always very supportive of the conversation around rethinking sample sizes. I’m taller than all of my peers, my body is just different from everybody else’s to start with, so the idea of having one-size-fits-all that everybody needs to shape themselves to fit is not realistic.”
Alongside modelling, Kloss has impressed with her extra-curricular activities: in 2012, she launched her Klossies cookies with hip New York City bakery Momofuko, which raises money for the Feed charity.
She is currently studying computer science and coding as an undergraduate at NYU. She has set up a related scholarship fund (Kode with Karlie) for underprivileged young women, and has her own YouTube channel (Klossy).
She’s impressively hard-working, and says – leaning over to give me a jar of Klossies – “I don’t like taking it easy. I aspire to build a business, and fill my days with lots of projects and philanthropy.” Will she always keep a hand in the modelling world? “I hope to have at least a foot in the door, for as long as they’ll have my big ol’ feet.” One can’t imagine Topshop is going to push her off the front row anytime soon. (x)
