Karlie Kloss: the next big thing

The most annoying thing about not being able to blog last year was not having an outlet for all the crazy things I heard & saw everyday. The second most annoying thing was not being able to blog all the trends and information that an editor sucks up like a sponge every day.

One of an editor's jobs is to always have an eye out for interesting models for editorial, and I saw faces that I was dying to write about. (And, flag wave to me, I always pick the girls who make it big.)

At the SS09 collections back in September I kept seeing a tall & willowy girl on the runway who intrigued me. I'd seen her at the fall 09 shows during her first season but she really stood out this time round. Whatever the show, she walked with her body at an almost impossible slant, swaying slightly but gracefully with her eyes fixed straight ahead in a furious , yet other-worldly, glare. I nicknamed her the beautiful alien.
(Louis Vuitton, SS09. Style.com)

At first her look almost offended me: she was not a pattern card beauty, but her sheer other worldliness began to work on me, and by the end of the season's collections in Paris it was obvious to me that she was one of the next big things.

Her name? Karlie Kloss. She's been getting a lot of industry buzz recently as she snagged the new Marc Jacobs Lola fragrance campaign and walked at couture this month - she wore the wedding dress at Givenchy - the most coveted outfit.

I reckon she is the next big breakout model (breakout from fashion insider-ness that is). Of course, she has plenty of time: she's sixteen. Never seeing her closer than a couple of feet from the first or second row in which I sat, I had no idea then that she was so young. Born in August 1992, she was fifteen when I first saw her walking in New York in spring 08. I do find this extremely disturbing.

However, I obviously wasn't the only editor transfixed by her at the collections, as she started appearing in properly major editorial from Spring 09 - mags have a three month lead time. (Having picked up i-D, a Ten cover, a few campaigns (incl GAP)

& a shoot for fashion's pornographer-in-chief, Terry Richardson in British Vogue all in 08).

For Jan 09 she shot British Vogue (Patrick Demarchelier), Vogue Italia (Steven Meisel), & US Vogue for Feb 09 (Meisel again), as well as picking up an SS Dolce campaign (Steven Klein).

Here she is in a British Vogue editorial from Feb 09, shot by Lachlan Bailey:

(So don't believe the guff about British Vogue only wanting older, larger models. What they - and every other fashion magazine & photographer - want is the newest face, regardless of age or size. Given lead times, Kloss must have been either 15 or sixteen by a month when she shot with Richardson for Vogue. I wldn't want my best friend near him, let alone a teenager.)

(image from style.com) This fall she has picked up Sportmax, Pringle (again) and this ravishing Chloe campaign shot by Mikael Jansson and styled by Marie-Amélie Sauvé,

Expect to see a lot more of Miss Kloss who, against all odds & in contrast to her alien mode on the runway, is always snapped cracking up with laughter backstage.