Kendall Jenner’s cover of LOVE is a winner, and the cover story is even better. In the piece, which is on newsstands though not yet online, the model talked about walking in Chanel — “Chanel! I did Chanel? That’s not, like, normal.” — brother-in-law Kanye West (He’s a smart guy. He knows what he’s talking about.”) and her very DIY first portfolio (“I did it on a Word document, stuck some pictures that I had taken myself, selfies, and some that my friends had taken with the craziest effects on them.”) Jenner also tells the magazine that, growing up, supermodels “were my superheroes. I thought they were just magical, with sparks flying around them.”
While one might think that Jenner’s name recognition helped her career, she claims the opposite is true. “I was like, ‘You know what? I want to be high fashion. I want to be taken seriously … People think that this [success] just came to me. But it didn’t. What I have has almost worked against me. I had to work even harder to get where I wanted because people didn’t take me seriously as a model. Because of the TV show,” she adds needlessly. “I went on castings and some people weren’t feeling me because of my name. But it was great when people didn’t recognize me. I was like, ‘Thank you. Please don’t recognize me.’”
Says Kim, “She had to work extra hard to gain this respect and to fight for people to see she’s serious. Marc Jacobs gave her a real shot and treated her like any other model. He believed in her and opened the door for her. Then Riccardo and Karl gave her a chance and she has proven that she is the real deal. Her hard work paid off, and that makes me so proud.”
While Kim might be a cheerleader for her younger sis’s career, Kendall isn’t returning the favor — at least not right now. “Kim was invited to a lot of the shows that I was in,” she says. “She called me before and was like, ‘Hey, I was invited to the show, I just wanted to let you know. Do you want me to come?’ and I was like, ‘No.’” But, Kendall, how are you going to get ahead without those K Stars?