Webster Groves’ Brainy (and Beautiful) Cover Girl

Supermodel, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “science nerd,” Karlie Kloss calls St. Louis “home in my heart.”

By Christy Marshall / Photos by Zach Hilty

St. Louis has a lengthy roster of famous ex-pats — past and present: Jayson Tatum, Jon Hamm, Andy Cohen, Sterling Brown, Nelly, Betty Grable, John Goodman, Ellie Kemper, Maya Angelou, Chuck Berry, William Burroughs, Yogi Berra, Kevin Kline, Michael McDonald, Jonathan Franzen, Josephine Baker, Lillian Gish, Vincent Price among many others.

But which of those luminaries have a street sign emblazoned with their name AND their own Ted Drewes flavor?

Only one.

Karlie Kloss.

Flanked by her family and friends, Kloss recently stood at the corner of Washington Avenue and 16th Street to unveil the newly named Karlie Kloss Way — an effort spearheaded as part of the Saint Louis Fashion Fund’s 10-year anniversary 10-event celebration.

Unveiling the street sign in the heart of St. Louis’ Garment District.

Karlie with St. Louis Mayor Tishuara Jones.

Born in 1992, Kloss grew up with her three sisters in a “big yellow house” on Oakwood Avenue. “My mom’s family has been rooted in Missouri for more than six generations, so my aunts, uncles, and cousins are all proud St Louisans,” Kloss says.

Kristin holds her new baby sister, Karlie.

She grew up with the typical St. Louis childhood: Webster Groves High School, Cardinal games, concretes at Ted Drewes, Straub’s, Bread Co, field trips to the St. Louis Art Museum lead by her mother, an artist. And there was ballet. “My mom took me to my first ballet classes when I was two years old,” she says. “Then I got back into seriously studying classical ballet when I was 11 at Caston’s Ballet Academie [in Webster Groves]. The training, determination and discipline I developed studying classical ballet has stayed with me my entire life and was a huge part of my success as a model. It’s been really key to feeling graceful and strong in my body despite being 6’2”.”

The sister Kariann, Kimby, Kristine, Karlie.

One (fateful) day when she was shopping at Plaza Frontenac, she was scouted by a couple, Jeff and Mary Clarke of the Mother Model Management Agency, in the throes of casting for an upcoming charity fashion show, THREADS for Hope. Kloss took the job.

“I had absolutely no idea what a fashion show was or how to model,” she says, “I had just turned 13 and I felt so nervous, but so excited!”

As is often said, the rest is history. Immediately signed by Mother Management, she started modeling a year later and in 2013, the Kloss family moved to Goshen New York as Karlie pursued her career. Photographer Arthur Elgort shot her for Teen Vogue; Bruce Weber was behind the camera when Karlie started modeling for Abercrombie Kids. She has walked the runway for John Galliano, Oscar de la Renta, Alexander McQueen, Dior, Versace, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Carolina Herrera, among others. She has been “the face” of Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nike, Donna Karan, Lanvin, Swarovski. She is a spokesperson for Estée Lauder.

But Kloss stays busy off the runway, away from the photo shoots.

“People don’t always associate fashion with tech, but the intersection of these two industries is where I found my groove,” Kloss says. “As I traveled the world for my modeling career, I saw technology having a greater impact on my daily life. I grew more and more curious about how these tools were developed and the language that powered them.”

She signed up for a two-week coding bootcamp at the Flatiron School in New York.

“I wanted to learn the fundamentals of tech that were clearly already transforming society,” Kloss adds. “I really enjoyed learning to build web apps using a program called Ruby, getting a better understanding how technology impacted everyone and, most importantly, emerging with a new level of confidence. At the same time, I was the lone woman in the classroom and that realization stuck with me.”

Her career as a supermodel soared as her prowess with technology flourished.

She went on social media and offered to fund scholarships to young women so they could have the same bootcamp experience she had.

“The response was staggering, with thousands of applicants for just 21 spots,” Kloss recalls. “That’s when I realized I could have much more of an impact in this space and how Kode with Klossy was born. Now we offer our own custom curriculum and we design our learning experiences to create pathways for young women and gender-expansive young people to explore, connect and spark change, one line of code at a time.”

Taste testing her own Ted Drewes flavor.

For the past nine years, she has hosted coding camps for more than 10,000 young people across more than 90 countries, as well as in St. Louis. “I am always coming to town to visit our scholars.”

Kloss’ world has had its share of fairytale moments. When she married her husband Josh Kushner in 2018 (and yep, Ivanka Trump is her sister-in-law), her wedding dress (matching shoes and rings pillow) was specifically designed for her by Dior. In Paris. You can track it from the initial sketch to the final fitting, her mother in tow. By completion, 10 people worked 700 hours to complete the dress in 10 days.

With one son (and pregant with a second), Kloss gets ready for the 2023 Met Gala.

It’s all on YouTube. In fact, Karlie started her own channel, Klossy, in 2015. There you can see her “Around the [name of city] in 24 hours” videos shot in either Shanghai, Cannes, Sydney, Madrid, Berlin and elsewhere. She shares her tips for packing a carry-on, skincare, workout routines, training for a marathon, preparing for one of the Met galas, etc. Today, she has more than 725,000 subscribers, in addition to more than 12.5 million Instagram followers. For a couple of seasons, she hosted “Project Runway.” She was a correspondent on “Bill Nye Saves the World.” She even created and marketed her own (vegan) cookie, dubbed Karlie’s Kookies.

Karlie started her own channel, Klossy, in 2015.

Saying she has “always been drawn to storytelling,” Kloss was part of an investor group that acquired W Magazine in 2020. Three years later, she bought and became CEO of i-D, the British bi-monthly magazine covering fashion, music, art, clubs, film and other creative outlets.

“This experience inspired me to launch Bedford Media and focus on reviving legacy brands with storied histories and cultural resonance,” she says. That’s my goal with i-D, which has carved out an incredible following at the intersection of fashion, media and culture.”

Karlie speaking at the dedication of her street sign in the St. Louis Garment District.

Earlier this year, Kloss and her husband bought rights to LIFE magazine and announced plans to bring back the print edition. “Josh and I are inspired by LIFE's iconic legacy,” she says. “I see it as an uplifting and unifying voice in a chaotic media landscape and am really excited about bringing new life into both publications.”

But her passions venture beyond technology, business, her own family (she and her husband have two young sons), to health care and specifically to every woman having access.

“From being a patient escort in my early 20s and marching in New York after Roe [v. Wade] fell, to visiting clinics in Illinois, I’ve seen and heard how desperately patients need care and the lengths doctors will go to provide it,” Kloss says. “Growing up in St. Louis with three sisters and a doctor for a dad, reproductive health wasn’t political. It's devastating to me that health care has become so politicized. That’s why I founded the Gateway Coalition, an organization designed to direct funding to Midwestern clinics on the frontlines and the patients they serve.”

You might spot Karlie Kloss around town. She regularly returns for holidays, as well as coming home to visit friends, family, her former teachers and neighbors. She’s also a connoisseur of the local cuisine, citing Imo’s pizza, Clover and The Bee’s stone-ground grits and the Chinese food from Sesame Inn among her must-haves.

Another favorite aspect of St. Louis?

“The people, of course,” she says. “My family has been proudly rooted in the Midwest for generations — about 250 years — and no matter how far I travel, my beloved St. Louis is always home in my heart. The spirit of St. Louis has shaped me into who I am today, so I carry those community and family values everywhere I go.”