Remember back in April, when Vogue created whole special issue for Kendall Jenner because she’s a mILLeNiAL on the iNt3rN3T but it also seemed like they just didn’t want to give her a real cover because she has dead eyes? Well, we were wrong! Vogue has cashed in every chip, and Kendall Jenner is on its September issue.
The accompanying story, written by a man, is actually more interesting than the photos (good style, good form, dead eyes), maybe exclusively because it spends around five paragraphs talking about Kendall’s robin’s egg blue Corvette. More specifically, Kendall shouts out Angelyne, and then the writer actually compares Kendall to Linda Evangelista, one of the greatest living supermodels, which is absurd.
In some ways, she is reminiscent of Linda Evangelista, who also knew she wanted to be a model from the time she was a little girl hanging out in her bedroom, practicing her runway walk, cutting up fashion magazines. Both of them essentially willed it to happen, which is rare. Most models are discovered and wind up doing it because, well, why not? It’s often the best option they’ve got. But when the goal is modeling, heartbreak and disappointment usually follow—after all, Fashion decides who gets to be a model and who doesn’t. But there is another reason Kendall reminds some of Linda: Like Evangelista in the early nineties, she is now on equal footing with the stylists and the photographers she works with—an active participant in her own photo shoots. She is, in other words, not just a girl for hire but, more often than not, the reason for the pictures in the first place, as in: This is a Kendall story.
This is a glorious bit that gives a long glance into the mindset of the writer, who is clearly trying to figure out why the damn hell he is writing this story. Also: What?!
Then, clearly having squared that, the piece gets fluffy, hitting on all the major points it wants to convey about how Kendall Jenner is so cool and down to earth. Marc Jacobs says this:
“We wanted to book her on her merit as a model,” says Jacobs, “not because she’s a Kardashian. Every bit of her success is a testament to her hard work and her passion.”
Also, though, the writer alludes to the rumors that she could possibly be maybe not totally straight:
Perhaps because she hasn’t had a boyfriend in two years, well, people like to talk. But Kendall says the reason no one knows much about her romantic life is that there hasn’t been much to report, because all she does is work—and, again, because she learned the lessons from her sisters all too well. “Why would you let other people have their opinion on it, when you’re not even certain of what’s going on?” she says. “When you’re young, everything’s just kind of all over the place. I don’t like it when people are all up in my business.”
And all of this because half the discussion is about Caitlyn Jenner, and what it’s like to be a kid whose parent transitions:
At one point Kylie and I thought he was cheating on my mom, because he had makeup and nail polish. One time we found those squishy boob things. We found wigs. And then one time I actually ran into her. In this house. She had no idea. She would wake up really early just so she could dress up and move around the house and get that little kick for the morning, and then go back to being Bruce—take us to school, totally normal. So one morning I woke up at 4:00 a.m. so thirsty, came downstairs into the kitchen, and grabbed a bottle of water. And as I was coming back out, my dad was coming down the stairs in, like, a wig and makeup and shoes—the full nine. And she didn’t see me. I literally froze. Please don’t turn left. Because she could either turn left or turn right. Thank God she turned right and—to this day!—has no idea that happened. That was the first time I had ever seen her.” She pauses for a moment. “My mom knew. She knew since their third date.”
Suddenly Kris appears. “Broooowwwwnnnnnieeees!” She sets down plates of freshly baked brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and joins us for dessert.
Sounds about right! Also, they ran out of gas.