Karlie Kloss
Appearances
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I was kind of over it. There were a lot of things that had happened. I wanted to go back to school. I mean, I had worked… I mean, first of all, you went back to school and you studied. I went back to NYU. I was like… A couple of things. I think one, I finally kind of woke up to the reality that like…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Yes, I can dissociate and sort of show up on set and like wear my lingerie and a set of wings and like have fun because I'm just sort of playing a character. But I think something kind of woke up for me because maybe also social media. Really, all of a sudden, I had a very direct sort of like access to and exposure to young women that…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
like quite quickly, like hundreds of thousands and then millions of young women that were following me, Carly. And they were following me for, I don't know what reasons, but it sort of like clicked for me that like what I actually am doing in my job, what I'm putting out there, is whether I'm, like, choosing it or not, it is… Like, I am projecting something.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I want to be more intentional about what it is that I'm projecting and making sure that that's authentically who I am. And I think that was sort of maybe the beginning of the reckoning of, like… Not just me being a canvas for other people's ideas and values and messages, but like actually me being a representative of like who I am.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
you. It's a real departure. It was a real departure, but I'm actually, I'm so glad I sort of followed that intuition. You know, I, there was like so much that I had not learned, I think in my, you know, my high school, public school education, but there was like a lot of just
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Thank you, Emma, for having me. I love you so much. I'm so in awe of all you've built and I'm so honored to be having this conversation with you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
in those classes like basic feminist theory around like the male gaze the female gaze the fashion image there was so much that I had just sort of like only just been introduced to these kind of ideas of like the influence of culture and the impact of of this imagery on society, on particularly young women.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I think that that's something that, you know, can't control the world, but I can control how I show up in it. And I think that was really, you know, it was a leap of faith because like also I was making, you know, a lot of money and providing for myself, my family, and…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Like to sort of choose myself and my values and like to walk away from things that I felt like didn't represent what I wanted to stand for in the world. Like that was, that was bold.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I think it sort of developed like all of us in our teens and 20s. I think I sort of just grew more and more into myself. I think I did small things that helped me build confidence to feel like, you know what, actually, like I can… You know, the first entrepreneurial thing I remember doing through my modeling career, I think it was… I can't remember what year. Maybe you'll remember.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Fashion's Night Out. Do you remember Vogue did that? Yes, of course. Maybe it was like… It was after or around the sort of recession of 07, 08. And Vogue had this sort of initiative to sort of… I think like stimulate the New York shopping economy. And like power to Anna for that. And…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
They, I, I'd always, part of my like signature thing I always did on all the Vogue shoots, I would, and I was working, you know, again, long before Victoria's Secret, I was doing like endless amounts of Vogue shoots. And so I would always show up on set with like fresh homemade cookies because that was my calling card because I was like 17, wasn't going to a club the night before a shoot.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Oh my gosh, I like barely fit in this chair. I'm like busting. I'm so excited. I'm so, it's only just starting to hit me. I'm like halfway through and I'm like, oh, I'm going to have three children. You're going to have three little children.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
So you were like, okay, here comes the guy.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
So Grace Coddington at one point was like, Carly, stop making cookies. Like, I'm going to connect you with Christina Tosi from Momofuku Milk Bar. You guys can make like a special cookie and do something for Fashion's Night Out. So cute. And that was, you know, that sort of was my first foray into social entrepreneurship.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
We ended up starting that night and going on for a number of years selling Carly's cookies. And we raised enough money through the sales of these cookies to donate millions of school lunches through Feeding America. Wild. And so—and feed, the feed program. And so that was sort of my first sort of foray into, oh, I can use my career as a way to make impact in ways that are meaningful to me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Well, it's funny because there weren't a lot of… There weren't a lot of sort of celebrity consumer brands, I think, being launched in the same way. Like, it was still early-ish. And actually, before even Code With Glossy, your husband, Jens, and Eric, founders of Frame, of course… Came to me. How did I forget this? In Paris. I know. There was one other thing. One second.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
The frame, 40-inch inseam jean called Carly Forever.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I was a very niche audience.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Five, yeah. Oh my goodness.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Well, thanks to Eric and Jens. And they really came to me and they were like, just starting frame. I remember it was sort of just kicking off. And I remember we got a coffee together in Paris. I don't, all the years run together. I want to say maybe it's 2013-ish. Yeah, that'll be about right. Yeah. And they were still running their creative agency.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I was working with them on different photo shoots and campaigns through that. And so it was sort of this almost just like side project that was like, we're going to tag it on to the end of the day. We're going to shoot one extra image. It was like so bootstrapped. Everything was so bootstrapped. And I think that was like such a fun experimental phase, I think. And
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I'm so excited and I'm so tired, but most of all excited.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
in building anything, like I love that, that sort of startup era, um, where you sort of just, there's nothing to lose. It was sort of like, they had a great brand, they were making jeans and they were like, Carly, would you want to do like a tall girl jean? And I was like, a hundred percent, even just for me to have selfishly like a couple pair of jeans. Can you just make me 10 pairs? Yes, please.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I was blown away by, even though it was niche, like hundreds of six foot two girls that I would run into everywhere that were like, Carly, this was the first time I ever was able to find jeans that fit me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And again, a niche thing, but it was sort of the first time that I was like, okay, this is a lived experience for me of like hard to find jeans that fit that and use that to sort of build a small little business collab that was really authentic and fun. And so again, that was another little boost of confidence.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
But I did. I remember I got like a license.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Thank you. And so I remember those checks. They were meaningful, or at least it was meaningful to me. It wasn't the biggest checks I'd ever received, but I was like, wow. It's ongoing. I'm not on set. But it also felt like the people who are actually buying this, like, are like me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Like, it actually… It didn't feel… Because at that point, I'd already done endless amounts of campaigns where I got paid the top dollar to sort of just show up and sell somebody else's brand, product, whatever. And it wasn't… It wasn't personal. This was… I had gone to the factories in LA and, like, helped, you know, sort of design every aspect of it. The stitching.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
We put a K on the side at the little…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
k-stitch and there was so much and and and also like I felt so invested in sort of making great imagery and then also social media launch and then also like doing the sort of launch events and getting the right people there like it was the first time again that I was cutting my teeth and like building something using the power I had through my platform through you know my sort of
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
career and access as a model. But it was like, again, these sort of building this muscle and having fun with it and then seeing like that it actually touched people, you know, real consumers.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Was it not the same? Yes. No, the only job I had before walking in that Calvin Klein show was babysitting for $6 an hour, which was top dollar at the time. And the house that I actually babysat in was just down the street from the house I grew up in. And I don't know, maybe five or six years ago, I actually bought that house. It was the biggest, most beautiful in the neighborhood.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I bought that house for my parents.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
It was pretty great.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
But it's true. Money is... To me, it's always been independence, freedom, safety. You know, I think... Yeah. Where did I begin? I mean, I was so aware.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
No. I grew up with very hardworking parents. I grew up in a small town in St. Louis, a suburb where everybody had the same amount of nothing. And it was like, we all… And everybody was really happy.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Like, that was…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I lacked for nothing. And also, my father is an emergency room doctor. He was always sort of one of the most successful people in our town. You know, he was… We had four girls in our house. We had two cars. You know, it was like we lived a big life. And I felt that. But also, something I don't talk about a lot, or I don't know if I've ever talked about, but I feel like this… I so…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
appreciate the importance of financial freedom and the power of money because in 2007, around the exact same time that I started my career, my family had a really hard time in the recession and had made some investments in real estate, invested like our entire sort of family nest egg, and it all disappeared.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And so as a freshman in high school, you know, my family was like trying to keep the roof over our head. And I, as a 15-year-old, you know, young model, was able to sort of help support my family and provide stability for my family.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And that was sort of, again, this motivating factor to— I didn't care about fashion, but it was a vehicle, a means to support my family and take care of my loved ones and create safety and stability. And I think that's where it's just like— I've been acutely aware of how important to me that that is to have for myself.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Well, I have lots to learn from you, mother of four and running your empires. I try just to do the best I can every single day. And I feel in a lot of ways, actually, having kids has sort of been a forcing function of prioritization. I've always been somebody who does a lot. I think that's just the way I'm wired. I started working at 15. I know you started really young as well. Pretty young.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Well, I am very intentional in the environment I'm raising them in though. I Above all, you know, listen, it's a new experience for me. It's a new experience. I'm trying to do the best I can as I go. But I am very intentional about the environment around them that I create around them. Like, I am their mom. I am extremely hands-on. I…
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
don't like to have a lot of people like… I want my kids to be able to like tie their own shoes and put on their own clothes. Same. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no like… No one picking the red M&Ms out for them.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And also, you know, candidly, like there is nothing more gratifying. Even though I would not wish what happened to our family or to, you know, that responsibility on me. I would not wish that on anyone. But I am so grateful for the… The gratification and satisfaction I have been able to experience in building for myself. Yes. I am so proud of the life, career, success I have built for myself.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I am self-made. And that gives me such pride and confidence. And, you know, I make investments for myself. There is such power to that, that I want my kids to feel that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I think that's it. It's like, there's things that we can't control that our kids are going to, you know, be exposed to or experience. But like, there's a lot that we can control. And I think the intentionality... So any advice you have, please, I'm all yours. Like, we're kind of figuring this out in real time.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I'm going to clock that for future. Take your kids to work. I take the kids to work. No, I think that's such sage advice and I can relate to that. And I think Josh certainly as well, like he has so many stories of he was like, you know, working, cleaning up trash and working on construction sites and like joining his dad at meetings, you know, early on.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I even went to, I mean, this was probably highly illegal, but there was like a take your daughter to work day. And like my dad worked in the emergency room. So there's like- like extreme trauma and like people. And I'm like in a lab coat at like 13 years old, totally should not have been there. And I, I loved it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I loved seeing my dad in that light and the sort of like, you know, you like when somebody, when you love what you do, like your kids see that and they see it and they admire it. And they, they, that is something to aspire to that feeling, no matter what it is that you do, the way that you feel when you do it, I see it for you. It gives you energy.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
So it's in my blood to sort of just like be busy and do things and be a productive person. But also having a child and, you know, I had my first son in the pandemic in 2021. And up until then, I really was a workaholic. I was on an airplane every two days, like genuinely. And even, you know, even through my relationship, like I was, work was always sort of my number one priority.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And by the way, I know it in myself when I am feeling that energy and when I'm not. And so I think I, what I've really tried to do is tap into like, what are the things that are not giving me that energy and that sort of state of flow and eliminating those things from my life or as much as I can.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I think that's so important to always take stock.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Yes. And I think I'm sort of almost even evaluating again, it's only just hitting me that this is third baby will be here soon enough that I'm like, okay, what are the things that kind of no longer serve me?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I am so proud of our scholars. You should be so proud of it. It's pretty surreal. I mean, Emma, I would have never imagined that it would grow into what it is today. And I didn't really think Think about it, I guess, all that much. How did you start it? Talk to me, like, from the beginning.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Again, sort of that period of when I was... Wanted to kind of, again, evolve my life and let go of some things. And I went back to school and I walked away from Victoria's Secret. And I was really kind of soul-searching of, like... What actually does feel meaningful to me? What is intellectually stimulating? And also, sort of a moment, and this is around 20… I guess at this point, 2014.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I had, again, felt this sort of responsibility… an opportunity with so many young women following me on social media. And I felt like I needed to do more with that or I wanted to do more. It was an opportunity to actually be impactful. So I didn't want to fully walk away from my fashion career because that was part of the power that gave me that sort of influence.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And sorry, Josh, but. We both, you know, we're both working all the time, but I think having a child and now being onto my third child, a lot of things have sort of just fallen into place. Like what matters most to me and what I'm willing to compromise for, compromise sleep for, and what I'm not.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
So it's like, how do I stay one foot in this world but use it in a more meaningful way, at least to me? And that's when... I went back to school. I went back to this coding boot camp called the Flatiron School. It was like a deep intensive in the sort of front end and back end of tech, both software, hardware.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
The only thing I knew—so I went to a great public school. There was no comp sci. You know, we had, thank goodness, a financial literacy class. Fantastic. Which was ahead of its time, but we did not have computer science. It was still early. So I had had no exposure, but what I had had was, by way of Josh, certainly, and all the entrepreneurs I met through him—
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I was meeting, you know, Kevin Systrom was one of the co-founders of Instagram and he was, you know, a friend of mine.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I'm coming to that dinner. Oh yeah. I know all the portfolio companies. Like I know, I know things. So I'm like, I met, you know, Kevin was a good friend and it sort of clicked for me. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Instagram, which has transformed my job as a model and certainly the fashion industry and many other industries, you know, he started with an idea and he not only had this sort of business idea, but actually he, more than even a business idea. He just, he knew how to code.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
He had this secret skill set of this fancy language that only certain, at the time, it felt extremely sort of out of access to anyone outside of Silicon Valley. It was this intellectual thing that only certain, primarily men. Yeah. If you knew, you knew.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And this was sort of still like early-ish days and... in a lot of sort of tech platforms. And so I was really fascinated by that. And I also loved sort of the challenge of that. I think maybe because I'm one of four daughters and I have this like sort of competitive drive of like, whatever the boys can do, we can do, I can do as well.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
It does. And so I think that like, I felt like, all right, first of all, how amazing that like one person can build an idea that can transform the world.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Like actually.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And then not only that, but like that one person is able to do that because they know this skill set. So what is this skill set? And why do more people not know it? And so I just started very simply with like, taking a, you know, three month course at the Flatiron School. And I was one of the only sort of women in the school. And there were a few, but definitely not enough.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I was really blown away by sort of just the basic anatomy of like how a
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
computer works how it was almost like the anatomy of like the hard drive and the you know all of the sort of like machinery it was like it was like a body it's like you have the heart you have the brain you have the veins that connect everything so it sort of demystified the hardware and then the software component too of like front end and back end of how to build a website like Pretty basic.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
But it was like very just sort of eye-opening of like, once you can get past the sort of bulky, awkward, or the abstract nature of like code and syntax. But it's like learning, I would imagine, Latin or another language. You know, I learned French. But like, it's like learning a language. And that was sort of, again, another, I think, moment of confidence boost that I was like, you know what?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
If I can learn this, like anyone can learn this.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
My idea at the point was, how do I get more girls to realize how powerful this is? Like right at the beginning, that's how you felt. That's how I felt at the beginning. It was a very clear like, oh shit, this is very powerful and it's not impossible to learn. This is the future and there aren't many women that are part of it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
This was 2015 and I put out on my social media at the time a very modest sort of scholarship program I was underwriting for 21 girls to experience the same sort of coding bootcamp that I went to.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I think it's because I'm from a big family. That's just what you do. You like, you share. You share the love. You share the love. And I've always been that way. Like, I love to share things I'm discovering or experiencing. So it just was innate. I didn't overthink it. I definitely did not think. Do you remember how much it cost you? Each? Good question. I think the whole thing maybe was like,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Maybe it was a $50,000 donation. Yeah, but it's meaningful.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Not nothing. But I was so excited to sort of support the school.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
And I did not think in that moment I was starting an education nonprofit. No.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
I'm going to do a good deed. And Emma, when I tell you the response we had to those 21 scholarship slots, thousands, really thousands of young women around the world and actually people, women, men of all ages. And the scholarship specifically was 13 to 18 year old young women in our programs that we wanted to sort of teach these skills. And that's the way the program was designed.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
But it sort of really was a moment where I was like, oh, wow, there's a disconnect here of enormous opportunity in these spaces and the lack of access to them. And maybe I should have built a for-profit business at that time around it. But I was like, let me just help connect these dots.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Well, again, I feel really lucky I started working at 15. I feel like I've had three lifetimes by the time I had my first kid. And I guess I'm still trying to figure it out. Yeah, that's the truth. I think there is no balance. There is no secret sort of formula. And at least if you've figured it out, let me know.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
It was so bootstrapped for a very long time. I, you know, we really sort of piecemealed it. Like, Like at the time, you know, I had nobody helping me. I didn't have an assistant. I had nothing. So the founder of the school and I sort of like went through a lot of applications. And, you know, the school really at the time was helpful in operating that first year.
Aspire with Emma Grede
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And we, I mean, it was hard to choose. And it is hard to choose because, you know. There's so much need out there. There's so much need. But so what, this is where it's like, I'm so proud to tell you, This summer, for instance, we're going through applications right now. We will have 3,000 scholarships.
Aspire with Emma Grede
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This summer alone, we will have 3,000 scholarships for young women around the world. How many women have been through the program? So this is the crazy thing. So from 2015 until now, we have had more than 11,000 young women in our programs around the world. So it started 21 scholarships. The next year was 75. The next year was 150. And then I think Next year was a thousand.
Aspire with Emma Grede
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Compare that to 4% of women in America graduating with computer science degrees. So 70% of our alumni are sort of go through our program and realize the enormous sort of opportunity, not just in tech, candidly. If you want to start a business like yours, if you want to go into beauty, into social entrepreneurship. Yes. Into, you know, climate change, into mental health areas, into medical fields.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Like technical literacy is invaluable, especially when you talk about things like AI, like the evolving world we're living in. I mean, by the way, the entire world will need to be re-skilled as AI is transforming how we live.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
But I am genuinely trying every single day to show up for the people that I love most in my life. And it's my children. That's my husband. That's my family. I'm very close with my sisters, my parents, and my friends. And again, I think a lot of that, candidly, until the pandemic, I didn't prioritize, I think, even my personal life, my friends. And your relationships.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Thank you. Well, no, statistics show, I mean, women are slower to adopt and adapt to AI and implementing that in their daily lives, even just today with chat GPT and the incredible tools that exist. And so, you know, I think what, um, just again, to kind of go back to our community, 11,080% identify as people of color. 40% would qualify for free and reduced lunch programs.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Karlie Kloss: How To Turn Principles Into Power Plays
Also another 70% of our alumni are over 18. So yes, our programs kind of reach this young teenage high school student before they've decided what they want to be in the world or what doors they think might be open or closed to them. And I think that is a huge part of why this is so impactful because we reach them at such a young age. But we're 10 years into this. So we have scholars that are
Aspire with Emma Grede
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into their mid to late 20s. And they are in the workplace and they are deeply still connected to us. And that is the sort of next evolution of the role that we play at Code with Klossy is how we continue to support them along the pipeline so that we keep them in these spaces. Because that is critical as well. And you know this.
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I mean, there's an enormous amount of sort of, I think, drop off and of women, you know, in that sort of broken rung era of sort of that first promotion to management. And so how to continue to support. our scholars and our community in the spaces that they go on to as leaders.
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And it's far just beyond, you know, the role that we play initially is sort of introducing them to computer science skills. We have AI machine learning, we have web dev, mobile app development, and data science. We take our curriculum very seriously. We build custom curricula. We train hundreds of teachers around the world. We have like a very robust program in how we run our operation.
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And I'm so proud of that. But what we're doing now is really thinking about, you know, thousands of young women who are our alumni, who we're growing with as they're growing and how to continue to sort of equip them with sort of, 21st century leadership skills. I don't even like to say like soft skills. It's like... No, but it's leadership skills.
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Thank you. I think it's just innately just the way that I think and the kind of things I care about. It's not some sort of master plan. It all sort of has evolved organically. And it's funny, I started angel investing long before it was like a trendy thing to do. You know, again, this sort of
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I think like you, you know, you and I, I think very much share this sort of early entrepreneurial bug of like always thinking about how to problem solve in a sustainable way. And to me, that's what entrepreneurship is. It's like, how can I identify a problem and build a sustainable solution that can be like… a viable business and better for the planet.
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And I think that's the framework that I've always looked at the kind of companies I want to invest in and companies is not even the people I want to invest in the ideas I want to invest in. And that has always been the framework of what I put money behind. I mean, I think I was 20 years old when I put my first, you know, angel check into, and that was not even like a term that I was aware of.
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So the last few years have been a real, I think, evolution of me as a person to actually kind of take care of myself a bit more. Even if that comes at a cost of work, it's worth it.
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I just, you know, I, uh, one of the first, um, you know, two women that I wrote a check to was they started this company called Lola, a sort of direct to consumer.
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And that was sort of one of the first moments where I really exercised my power of having money and being able to sort of support an idea that I felt like was better for the world and better for me as a consumer.
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So much. Um, One, I mean, women just get shit done. So I love to invest in women. Do you exclusively invest in women? No, no, no, definitely not. I've invested in, you know, Khalifa Farms almond milk and, you know, so many other like consumer products, tech platforms, definitely some male-founded businesses too. But there's a couple other businesses that come to mind that I… that I love.
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I mean, two more since I've entered motherhood. One is called Bobby. Another is Kotori.
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For sure. I have always thought any, and this was long before I had a lot of money, power, privilege, platform, or a big voice, but all of those to me have been vehicles that I have wanted to use to drive impact or push the world toward the direction I hope it goes. And I think that for me, I care so deeply about access to opportunity.
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My life has been transformed because of access to opportunity that I had. And that was because of something in a lot of ways I didn't have control over. I was a tall, skinny girl at the right place at the right time. That I couldn't control. And a lot of things, my fate, you know, I hated that I couldn't control my success based on that.
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A young woman learning how to code who works, who pours herself into learning anything, by the way, like that is a skill set that can change. create, open any door you want and create a life and a career for yourself. And to me, that's what I like. I've lived in my experience, like how transformative it can be when you have access to an opportunity and when you take that and run with it.
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So I have always wanted to use any power, platform, privilege, voice I have to help create access to opportunity. Because even if it's just one person, that would be meaningful to me.
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To me, it's healthcare. It shouldn't be a contentious conversation. It should be a basic human right of access to health care if and when someone needs it and chooses it. If you don't believe in it, you don't want it, you don't need to choose it. Don't have one. Yeah. health issues don't discriminate.
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You know, I'm sitting here five months pregnant, and there's a lot that I feel very vulnerable to that, like, you know, God forbid something might happen that I can't control. And in that moment, I would hope that there is access to life-saving care, to vital care. And unfortunately, the reality is In many states across this country, there is not.
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And 25 million women of reproductive age in America are living in a state with some type of abortion ban. And to me, that is infuriating. That is devastating because the implications of that are very real and are being played out in real time. And to me, that's not politics. This is this is life we're talking about.
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And, you know, I think the sort of inequitable access, you know, it's like for me, I can get on an airplane and leave whatever state I'm in to access the best medical care in New York or in California. But like a lot of women don't have that privilege or that time.
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And, you know, I think there's so much statistics I could sit here and tell you about sort of the misinformation and misconceptions I think around this too. I mean, an overwhelming majority of abortions happen before 13 weeks. Overwhelming majority are already mothers who are seeking this care. This is not a light decision.
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And to me, it doesn't matter how or why somebody is coming to that decision. It is a health service that People deserve to have if they need it. And to me, it's really infuriating. You know, I'm from Missouri.
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All my sisters, neighbors, friends, family, like many which live back home and are... You know, Missouri is actually a state where we fought very hard over the last year to not only pass the ballot initiative, but just get it on the ballot. You wouldn't even believe. But we passed it. It was the first state to ever go from a complete abortion ban to...
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Well, I think we are both very lucky that we have very supportive partners who want that for us as well. You know, I think Josh really, my husband, we've been together since I was 19. Like we are, we have truly babies now having babies. And we, I feel like we've grown up together and he has always been my biggest champion of parenting.
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row standards to sort of, it was, it's, and, but it's still being contested. It's still been held up in, in the court cases. And, and, and now, you know, there's threats that they're going to try and repeal it. So it's, this is, I mean, imagine if you poured that energy into more productive places of actually helping people.
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And to me, all I, you know, hope to do is with any power privilege platform or voice or votes that I have, is do what I can to help others access care if they need it and support the care providers who are risking their lives every single day to do this work.
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And, you know, I think maybe because my dad's a doctor, like I understand, no one is, you know, the people who are doing this are doing this because they know that it is how critical it is. And I just want to do whatever I can to support that work.
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Well, I definitely feel like the person that's running into the burning building that everybody else is running out of. I actually do think, like, call me crazy, but I also think that's where some interesting opportunities emerge. And I think that is… It is a moment of evolution, absolutely, in the business model of media. And to me, what is very hard to do is build a brand from the ground up.
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Which I have tremendous respect for all that you've built. You're right. And… To me, what I saw with ID and certainly with Life and W is that they are… These are brands. These are storied brands. They have archival history. They mean things to people. What they stand for, what the role they've played in sort of pop culture or culture.
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I'm just going to make me emotional here but he's always been my biggest champion and I think especially in this sort of like adjustment into motherhood he has been somebody who's like Carly you you cannot lose yourself you will not be happy and then that our children will feel that and I think that's something I so appreciate that he has always been sort of my mirror in that way.
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And to me, that is a very hard thing to manufacture or build from the ground up. And so I think… when I saw the sort of distressed opportunity with ID Vice going through bankruptcy, you know, one, I mean, we both know and love Edward Enningful dearly. I mean, ID was one of the first editorials I did.
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your mind and eyes to new ideas and new different ways of thinking and dressing and people. And to me, that's what, you know, ideas so uniquely sort of had this place in sort of youth culture, certainly in the UK scene and in the fashion scene, but beyond. You know, I think that's like, you know, it's such a sort of storied platform also in music.
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So many musicians have sort of had their first— So, Carly, what are you going to do with it?
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No, no, no. Well, to me, the opportunity is to sort of like reimagine the business that can be built around that. And we've, you know, it's been, I've learned so much. I mean, let me tell you, it's only been maybe a year and a half since I, or less, a year and change since I acquired ID. And we've fully rebuilt the engine inside. You know, we rebuilt, we bought it out of bankruptcy.
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So effectively, like, had to build from the ground up the site, the sort of CMS, the back of house. The editorial team too? Did you have to rebuild that? Yes. There was a lot of sort of evolution across all aspects of the business. But to me...
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what the opportunity is and what we're really focused on doing is sort of preserving and protecting the DNA of what it always was, but reaching young people today where they are, which is of course across the digital mediums, you know, print is one spoke of what we do. I think print deserves to live on, but like there's a lot smarter ways you can like manufacture and distribute your print.
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So you're not, Printing a lot of magazines and then they're getting ultimately pulped, which is a sad truth about the publishing world.
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To me, it's like, you know, that is the opportunity to sort of build more than just a content business. You know, of course, there's… And that's still a meaningful business. You know, I think, like, we consume more content and information than ever. But I think the way in which you can actually leverage that… To me, I think of three different sort of audiences that matter deeply.
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One is our audience. Like, consumer…
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readers young people people of all ages around the world who want to read our content talent and then our brand partners and there's ways to sort of like create a better better way to sort of serve all parties because they all play into each other like it is not really serving a brand partner like an advertiser to buy a page in a print magazine anymore like that is there's there's
Aspire with Emma Grede
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Well, it's one dimensional, right?
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But actually what's more interesting is like, and especially I've seen this, you know, post-pandemic is like experiential and these sort of like moments that people are craving and brands find far more sort of meaningful. And so to me, it's like, how do we just, how do we sort of think first principles about the business that can be built around these brands?
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Again, ideas very much sort of this youth culture, music, fashion, sort of street culture, like irreverence. And I think like there's so much that sort of we're building within that world. W is incredible. It has an incredible editor-in-chief. And then life.
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He's like an American icon, no? And it's been asleep. It's been dormant for, I mean, out of print more than 20 years. And so- That we're deep in sort of the… Sort of underground phase of building the team around… And relaunching… And you're working with your husband? And that is the first time Josh and I have ever really worked together. I mean… You tell me. You work with your husband all day.
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Well, stay tuned. I mean, I definitely am excited to, you know, have that sort of come to life, no pun intended, at the right time. But I think that, you know, it was always built on this sort of like deep sense of values. Stay tuned. I will Keep you posted.
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More times. I mean, all the time. Still, of course, all the time today. You know, I think I have definitely evolved. I think growing up from being a young woman in the public eye, starting a career in a very public way,
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I think I used to put so much more weight on the way that I was perceived, more weight on those judgments, those point of views of others to sort of assess how I felt about myself based on how everybody else felt. And I think that with time, age, wisdom, and I think certainly motherhood, I genuinely don't give a fuck what anybody thinks about me.
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It's the biggest decision of my life.
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Oh my God, I've learned so much. I think I've learned to trust myself, to trust my instinct, to trust my sort of just my own voice. I think I, again, always, Because I started so young. I had a lot of sort of like chaperones or agents or people sort of coddling me or telling me what I was supposed to be or do. And I think finally actually just trusting my own voice, my own gut response to things.
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That has… When I don't listen to that, then I go wrong. Yes. And I think that's where it's just like I'd rather make a mistake… based on like my own choice as opposed to not trusting myself, listening to somebody else and ultimately making that same mistake. Like I'd rather just own it myself. I love that.
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check my Nanit for my kids or check on my kids run into the room. Uh, or if I'm on the other side of the country, like today, like check on my kids, call home. Um, yeah. I love that. And then coffee shortly after.
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Um, I make sure to set like three alarms because I'm a solid sleeper.
Aspire with Emma Grede
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I think to continue to keep growing as a leader. I feel like… I say this to Josh all the time. I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And he's like, Carly, nobody does. And so that's helpful. But I think just to continue to sort of grow as a leader, as a boss, as a manager, as a person… And better sort of… I think work smarter, not just harder.
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Hmm… working smarter not just harder to sort of free up more space and time um and yeah I I think just like I have really tried to be as present in this moment because it does go it is going so quick my son and you see this you have you're you're eight and eleven right that is like they might as well be in college they might as well be in college that's how I feel
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Oh my gosh. Time is moving so fast.
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Oh my gosh. Well, I always love reading The Alchemist. I most recently just read my friend Amy Griffin's book, The Tell, which was deeply moving. Deeply, deeply.
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Hmm. I think, you know, I was always so professional back then. But I think I… I don't know. I guess I wasn't always… I was always on time. But I now really appreciate how that is a very important thing. But I was always very professional. But now I'm on time.
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That means the world coming from you, Emma. I so, I love you. I appreciate you. I admire you. I aspire to be the woman that you are and that, you know, your four children, my God, I need all your lessons. But thank you for having me and just, just the light you are in the world. And you are such an inspiration for me and for so many. So thank you.
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Oh yeah. I mean, we started dating so young. I was 19. He was 25, 26. He was just starting a healthcare company called Oscar. he had just I think launched his first fund he was some early days in his career and I like to remind him I was far more successful than he was for a very long time and I you know but I had never met anyone like him before he was such a kind, kind man.
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And I, you know, I felt like still a girl, but also had lived this very adult worldly life since I was 15. I had had my first apartment in New York. I'd traveled by the week, you know, New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, everywhere while juggling my high school education. So, you know, I sort of just had moved to New York and was really, really lucky to meet. And I could have...
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Never imagined I would meet like the love of my life and the person I would end up like. At 19. At 19. And there's pros and cons to that for sure. But I don't know. I definitely wasn't looking for it. But I think we also… Because we met so young, we've been through so much together.
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That we've both really grown together. And I think that's also part of… why our partnership is so solid is because we've both… It's like there have been so many things in life that we've had to… Challenges we've faced personally, professionally, privately, publicly.
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That it's like… It's almost like a trial by fire. Like it forges you in that bond forever. And I think if you can get through those things together, you… Like that's… I feel very grateful for it. Because like I feel like we can get through anything. You really can.
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It's actually when I turned 30, people were like, how are you only still working? It's really true.
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For sure. I was a child pretending to be a grown-up for a long time. Well, and doing a really good job pretending. I learned the game very quickly. I grew up in Missouri wearing, like, the Gap. You know, like, that was my idea of high fashion. Maybe limited to. Um, but I, so I, it was not my world that I grew up in by any means. And I was not reading Vogue.
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I was not, you know, so for me, I sort of dropped into this other parallel universe.
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I was an alien child.
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Somehow I'm even taller today, but I was 5'11 at 15 years old. And I was so tall and I just... was in the right place at the right time. And did you have aspirations to model? Not at all. Not at all. I was walking in a mall in St. Louis in like Birkenstocks and a really amazing local scout, Jeff and Mary Clark, they discovered Ashton Kutcher at a bar in Iowa. Like it was such a fluke, honestly.
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And I feel very grateful that, you know, they sort of took me under their wing and really helped me launch in a very legitimate way. And if it would not have happened that way, there's no world I would have,
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pursued this it was not it was not like honestly what I was interested in my dad's a doctor I love science I'm a total nerd like and that has continued to be sort of where like my heart and my mind kind of is most stimulated but I had this key to the world overnight through sort of this opportunity to build a modeling career so from 15 to 18 years old I took advantage of it I ran with it and I sort of took my studies with me I was doing my
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homework backstage and on airplanes I had my grandma my mom my teacher anyone sort of chaperoning me because I was under 18 and sort of living this jet set life and then coming back home to St.
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I did. It's actually funny. I feel like I walked my first Victoria's Secret fashion show and I like pretty immediately they signed me on contract. And I, as a girl in Missouri, like the exposure I had to fashion was on Project Runway. Yeah.
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Heidi Klum on Project Runway and the Victoria's Secret fashion show and like I'm one of four daughters so we would all pile around the TV and like that's that was the sort of like height of fashion in my eyes and so it was very full circle to then sort of sign with them and and be on the runway and actually it's funny I had just graduated high school and I think there was this feeling of like all those all like I know I could not get a date in high school I'm not exaggerating you're like I'll show them I'm like I'll show them like those boys that didn't want to like go on a date with
Aspire with Emma Grede
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You couldn't get a date in high school?
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No. Stop it. I was so tall and pale. And, like, I think they were like, where is this girl all the time?
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I mean, it was such a funny moment. It was actually, it was very, like, gratifying to be like, yeah, see? You know, I don't want to shut up.
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There were a lot of things happening around that time. Social media was starting to develop. So I graduated high school in 2011. I think I walked my first VS show that year. I remember Instagram really was sort of one of the first places. And then I met Josh in 2012. And I remember, I think he was the one that was like, oh, there's this new thing, Instagram, like you should sign up for it.
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Like it was all so new and social media was really one of the first platforms for someone like me, like a model that had been already very accomplished and successful on all the covers of Italian Vogue, American, like American Vogue, Vogue's everywhere. Well, you've done like 40 Vogue covers. Is that right?
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I mean, that's bananas. But I was on a household name. You know, it's like the names that Americans knew were the Victoria's Secret models. It was like Giselle. Absolutely. Heidi.
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Candice. And like those were the girls. So in a funny way, it was almost sort of like just a box that I wanted to tick because it was the highest sort of like platform a model could aspire to. But, you know, it's funny because I think, you know, and especially like I was reflecting on this, like I think I was so…
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dissociated from my body as a model it was sort of my job it was sort of this like almost you know I was like a like a racehorse you know it's like I was not it was not me that felt like I was me on that runway wearing those wings it was more like it was sort of a job it was a and I and I almost like a caricature of yourself you kind of created this like
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And that really, I think, is a way that I was able to sort of survive and thrive in my career as a model. And I started, you know, first I was a ballerina as a young teenage girl. And I think that sort of is something that trains you to almost like your body is a performance vehicle. Yeah.
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And so I always have sort of dissociated, I think, my me, like me actually the person, Carly, from the way that I showed up in my job and in a photo shoot. Which I think gave me, you know, it was both something I think now is like I've had to work through, which is I think motherhood actually finally was the first time where I was like, Whoa, like there's something maybe Saturn return.
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I don't know. But like I had to sort of actually ground myself in myself. But I think for those early years, I was so sort of dissociated.