When it was announced last week that Kendall Jenner would be the new face of Estée Lauder,
a coveted contract that in the past has gone to actresses like Gwyneth
Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley and supermodels like Joan Smalls, the
company did not promote the news by way of the usual public-relations
machine, with news releases or email blasts.
Instead, after Vogue broke the story on its website, in anticipation of a 13-page spread in the magazine, Ms. Jenner was encouraged to tell the public herself, on her own Instagram account. That post quickly garnered more than a million “likes,” 50,000-plus comments and many, many heart-eyed emoji.
It
was the latest plum appointment for Ms. Jenner, 19, a daughter of Kris
and Bruce Jenner, and a half sister to Kim, Khloé and Kourtney
Kardashian. Her seemingly meteoric rise over the last few years has
taken her from a sulky minor player on the sometimes cringe-inducing but
highly successful reality show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” to a
tentative career as a teenage model
to the runways of the major fashion shows (Chanel, Marc Jacobs and
Givenchy, among them). Along the way, she has all but redefined what it
takes to become a high-profile model.
Ms.
Jenner is tall, dark-haired, doe-eyed and beautiful. But so are
hundreds of other girls who walk the runways of New York, Milan and
Paris and thousands more who dream of one day doing so. What they don’t
have are Ms. Jenner’s 16 million followers on Instagram, 9.1 million on Twitter and 7.3 million likes on Facebook
(numbers that will surely have grown by the time you read this). Like
many other 19-year-old girls, she uses these accounts to share photos of
herself, her family and friends. Unlike many 19-year-old girls, she
also uses them to plug her many partnerships and commercial projects.
“I
think what’s so exciting about her is that she has this social media
influence along with a fashion credibility in a distinct way that speaks
to millennials,” said Jane Hertzmark Hudis, the global brand president
of Estée Lauder. “There is really no one else like her out there.”
Kendall Jenner’s Spring 2015 Season Appearances
Like
her older siblings, with their retail stores, fragrance lines, nail
polishes and more, Ms. Jenner juggles multiple brand extensions premised
on her family fame. With her younger sister, Kylie, she is marketing a
collection of clothes and accessories for PacSun, one of shoes for Steve
Madden’s Madden Girl line and a science-fiction young adult novel set
in a dystopian future colony called Indra.
But
the Kardashian affiliation that first brought her to the world’s
attention has put her on a peculiar perch: followed by millions but
navigating aversion in a cloistered industry accustomed to minting its
own stars, and a historically wary — but steadily warming — relationship
with the Kardashian family. (Ms. Jenner’s agent and several of her
clients, including Ms. Hudis, claimed not to watch “Keeping Up With the
Kardashians,” now filming its 10th season.)
“It’s
definitely two different worlds. I feel like Hannah Montana. But it’s
fun,” Ms. Jenner said, referring to Miley Cyrus’s character, who
navigates a double life in and out of the spotlight, on the Disney
sitcom that began her career and pop stardom. (Of course, both of Ms.
Jenner’s worlds are squarely in the public eye.)
For
modeling purposes, and with a touch of wishful thinking, Ms. Jenner
prefers to go by simply “Kendall.” In person, she is charming but terse,
with a daffy sweetness if not necessarily the gift of gab.
When
she presented at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, she famously muffed
her lines, dissolving into giggles and admitting, “Guys, I’m the worst
reader.” At a fitting at Marc Jacobs’s office — during which a crowd of
teenage girls gathered outside of the building, hoping to catch a
glimpse of her — she was taken with a publicist’s striking eye color.
“Are those your real eyes?” she asked.
She
arrived for a recent interview at her agency’s office dressed
model-casual: Céline slip-on sneakers, a black T-shirt and skinny pants
(tag still on) by which designer she wasn’t sure. They had shown up
unbidden at her house, like much else, a perk not every model enjoys.
She
is the first to acknowledge that she was not always interested in
style. “On Season 1 of our show, I would wear, like, neon green jeans
and a white polo shirt, the craziest things,” she said, though in her
defense, when “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” premiered in 2007, Ms.
Jenner was 11 years old.
She
called modeling a lifelong dream. “I would literally sit at home and
have my friends take pictures of me on my little Canon camera that my
mom gave me for Christmas,” she said. “Obviously, the show was me being
in front of a camera. It’s just something that I’ve kind of always been
around.”
Initial forays into modeling were small in scale. In 2011, Ms. Jenner appeared in the New York Fashion Week show of Sherri Hill, a designer from Austin, Tex., who specializes in event and prom dresses.
Earlier
that year, Ms. Jenner’s appearance at a shoot of Ms. Hill’s dresses had
been a plot point on an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”
But Ms. Jenner’s role on the show had largely been as a sidekick to her
scenery-chewing sisters.
With
a new agency, The Society Management, specializing in high-end fashion
bookings, behind her, Ms. Jenner is now working to rebrand. “We had to
be very strategic and specific,” she said, “to really have people take
me seriously and not mess around.”
The
perceived divide between commercial and high fashion is so wide that,
when asked whether Ms. Jenner’s well-documented Sherri Hill appearance
had been her New York Fashion Week debut, a Society representative
declined to confirm, writing, “we recall her as still being in school
during that period.”
With a name like hers, fairly or not, there have been detractors for as long as there have been supporters.
“It
always comes as a shock when I tell the story of how I casted Kendall,”
Riccardo Tisci wrote in an email about his decision to use Ms. Jenner
in his Givenchy show and ad campaign. “I didn’t do it because of my
links to her sister or to Kanye, as everyone seems to believe. I only
chose Kendall because I thought she was amazing, a striking, dark, edgy
beauty, exactly the way I like them.”
Even
with prominent advocates, Ms. Jenner’s rise was freighted with
uncertainty. “Her agent was very aware that she had one shot at being a
credible model,” said the stylist and Love Magazine editor Katie Grand,
an early champion, who in February orchestrated Ms. Jenner’s return to
New York Fashion Week by placing her in Marc Jacobs’s show.
When
The Society first asked her to consider Ms. Jenner, Ms. Grand was
reluctant. “I didn’t even really know who she was other than someone I
thought went skiing with Harry Styles once,” she said, alluding to Ms.
Jenner’s alleged former beau. (The rumor mill has linked Ms. Jenner to
Mr. Styles, of One Direction, and Justin Bieber, among others.)
Ms.
Grand said her first reaction was “underwhelmed.” Ms. Jenner’s shyness
can read as standoffish, and she is still developing the presence that
can distinguish a top model. Even today on the runway, she can often
blend into the endless parade of willowy but indeterminable young women,
without the identifiable prowl of a model like Karlie Kloss, or the
seasoned charisma of one like Naomi Campbell.
Ms.
Jenner’s agent begged for one more appointment. On a follow-up visit,
Ms. Grand found her less shy, more spirited and ambitious. “There’s lots
of people that I’ve worked with at a time before they kicked into the
fashion world or fashion consciousness,” she said. “Marc is very aware
of that, because we’ve worked together for so long. He kind of humors me
a bit. It’s always a bit of an eye glaze and ‘Really? Are we really
going to do that?’ ”
They
did. Mr. Jacobs, initially skeptical, came around, largely because, Ms.
Grand said, “she looked really good in the clothes.” The reaction,
thanks in no small part to the look Ms. Jenner wore — which included a
breast-baring, sheer top — was immediate. “I was in a car on the way to
the airport immediately after the show to go to London,” Ms. Grand said.
“I was just looking through Twitter and it was everywhere. I think I
didn’t really realize it would be such a thing.”
But
despite the ensuing cacophony (not only from fashion blogs, but also
The Daily Mail, Fox News and more), Ms. Jenner kept a limited schedule
that season, walking only for Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Tisci, Giles Deacon in
London (another Ms. Grand client) and Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel.
More
followed. She appeared in Chanel’s Couture show in July and on the
cover of Ms. Grand’s Love Magazine. During the Spring 2015 season in
September, she expanded her show list to add Diane von Furstenberg,
Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana, among others. She is one of a
handful of models in the new Karl Lagerfeld spring ad campaign, and is
said to be in spring ads for Marc Jacobs as well. (Michael Ariano, a
representative for Marc Jacobs, said he could neither confirm nor deny
this.)
Although
she said she was happiest to go unrecognized at castings and shows —
even, in one case, being asked by a makeup artist, “Did you know Kendall
Jenner is here?” — the media has noted her every appearance, and stoked
rumors.
In Touch Weekly
reported that other models, threatened by Ms. Jenner’s ascendancy,
taunted her by putting out cigarettes in her drink. (Ms. Jenner’s
representatives dispute this.) OK! Magazine splashed a runway shot and a photo of a weeping Kim across its cover under the headline, “Kendall: ‘I’m the Hot One Now!’ ”
There
are those in the industry who resent the intrusion of celebrity into
the hermetic runway world, though Ms. Jenner’s high profile largely
ensures that they complain privately rather than publicly. Ms. Jenner is
not the only model to make the leap — her friends Gigi Hadid, a
daughter of the “Real Housewife of Beverly Hills” Yolanda Foster, and
Hailey Baldwin, a daughter of Stephen Baldwin, have, too — but she is
the most famous.
Ms. Jenner’s dual citizenship, as it were, in the realms of fashion and celebrity is a decisive factor in her appeal.
After
the announcement of her Estée Lauder campaign, social media responded,
both in favor of Ms. Jenner’s appointment and opposed to it.
“@EsteeLauder Have you lost your mind...” asked one user on Twitter. “Do you really understand your customer base... Where did you pluck Kendall Jenner from”?
But
its executives know both who their customers are — in the United States
and Europe, women as close to Kris Jenner’s age as to Kendall’s — and
who they hope new ones might be. According to data provided by the
company, on the Saturday of the announcement, EstéeLauder
received six times the number of unique visitors as on an average
Saturday. Within 48 hours of the announcement, 90 percent of visitors to
the site were first-timers, 71 percent viewing the site on a mobile
device.
“It
speaks volumes to where we are right now in terms of nontraditional
media,” said Chris Gay, the general manager of The Society, of the Estée
Lauder campaign. “Millennials are not into traditional media. How
they’re getting their media is completely fractured.”
As
models have gone from muses to marketing partners, their social
presences, global reach and audience engagement have become a more
important part of their appeal. “There’s no Q ratings for models,” Mr.
Gay said, referring to Q Scores, a measurement of consumer awareness of
and favorability toward brands, characters and personalities. “That was
never part of the equation. But now you have real analytics.”
(The
Q Scores Company does in fact track a number of models. Ms. Jenner has
an awareness percentage of 33 among the general population, which puts
her in line with actresses like Kerry Washington, and only 2 percentage
points below Gisele Bündchen, the world’s highest-paid model. Her Q
score, measuring the percentage of respondents who called her one of
their favorites, is 10 to Ms. Bündchen’s 13.)
Ms.
Jenner’s friend Olivier Rousteing, the creative director of Balmain,
depended less on analytics than personal experience when he decided,
after spending time with her at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding,
to cast her in his spring show. But he was not insensitive to the pull
she exerts on young women worldwide.
“She’s
really communicating to a lot of girls,” he said. “You know, like those
models in the 90s, Claudia, Naomi — young girls were dreaming of being a
model. I think Kendall is bringing these things. Girls are dreaming
about how to be her.”
Ms. Jenner did not care to parse the various interpretations the world has offered on her rise.
“Some
people are hesitant with me, and they just worry or wonder for a
second,” she said. “But then when the chance gets taken . ...”
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