18 Things to Know About Jewish Model Karlie Kloss

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Karlie Kloss

Karlie Kloss, member of the tribe, recently converted to Judaism and married her boyfriend of six years, Josh Kushner (yes, he is the brother of that other Kushner). As a high profile model, we figured it was about time to give her the “18 Things” treatment.

1. Karlie was born in Chicago, Illinois, but at age 2, moved to St. Louis, Missouri. As a kid, she trained as a ballerina.

2. She’s a middle child; all her sisters have names that start with “K” (like another famous family): Kristine, Kariann, and Kimberly.

Karlie Kloss
From Teen Vogue, 2012

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3. She started modeling at age 14; she was discovered “at a charity fashion show in a mall in St. Louis….[for] her cat-like walk.” Now, “Kloss has now walked for almost every major fashion house, transforming her original gait into one of the most lauded and commented upon on the circuit. Agile and long-limbed Kloss has won admirers and plaudits across the industry, including the casting directors of Victoria’s Secret, the most publicized runway in the world.”

4. She joined Instagram a week after she started dating Josh Kushner. This is her first post:

5. She’s been on the cover of Vogue a lot.

Karlie Kloss
A snippet of her Vogue covers

She also did a Vogue “73 questions” video (released earlier in October 2018), and it’s a bit awkward:

6. Her friendship with Taylor Swift (and maybe friendship no more?) is well-documented, particularly with this 2015 Vogue cover. They met at the 2013 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Karlie says of Taylor, “We’re also just normal 20-something girls, and I think you have to have people that you can be that with. You know, real friends are hard to find — and Taylor’s a real friend. There’s nothing better.” Sure: very normal. Very real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCC7QvHOk84

7. There’s also a persistent rumor that Taylor and Karlie dated. This is called “Kaylor” (Karlie + Taylor), and people really believe it. This article in The Ringer does a fantastic job of breaking it down. We’ll leave it at that.

8. She’s taking over for Heidi Klum as the new host of Project Runway.

9. She founded Kode with Klossy in 2015, a free coding camp for teenage girls. She started it a year after taking a two-week pre-college coding course at the Flatiron School — she loved the experience of learning to code so much, she wanted other young girls to have the opportunity. As she said, “It’s really an exciting and empowering feeling, and it’s really cool to watch these young women do it. It kind of totally changes their thought of what they think they’re capable of within this space.”

10. She attended NYU, apparently, but NYULocal has very funny coverage of her (non) attendance. (“10 times Karlie Kloss wasn’t in class this week” is maybe our favorite.)

11. She traveled to Israel earlier this year, and got a ton of backlash on social media, naturally.

12. She was on Bill Nye Saves the World in a great orange suit (that matched the tomatoes she was touring):

13. She rarely gets political, but she did vote for Hillary and attended the March for Our Lives:

14. She was VERY excited about the giraffe emoji. (She’s very tall.) (How is this a fun fact, we don’t know, but there are few fun facts about her we could find.)

15. In another world, she would’ve been a kindergarten teacher. “I love kids, so two things that I have thought about are being a pediatrician or a kindergarten teacher.”

16. She ran the NYC Marathon in 2017.

17. Oh, and did we mention she married Josh Kushner?!

18. Seriously just read our timeline of their relationship, it is much more interesting than this.

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