Kendall Jenner Refers to Other Models as “Those Girls,” and Those Girls Aren’t Happy
“I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f–k those girls do.”
For Love magazine’s 10th anniversary issue, model Kendall Jenner, staunch proponent of freeing the nipple, was photographed topless in a variety of contexts by Alasdair McLellan—floating in a pond, hanging out with some animated squirrels, posing in a studio with a coupe, strings of pearls, and a retro bouffant. Late last week, the magazine Instagrammed yet another shot from Jenner’s spread, along with a quote from the interview accompanying the shoot. “Since the beginning we’ve been super selective about what shows I would do,” she said. “I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f–k those girls do. More power to ’em.” Instead, Jenner said, she worked on “a million jobs, not only catwalks but everything else,” a combination that “was very overwhelming” and brought her to “the verge of a mental breakdown.”
In the intervening days, a series of models have pointed out that not everyone has the option to book only a certain number of runway appearances. Instead, for most, it’s necessary to “do like 30 shows a season” in order to make a living in fashion—models who, as Daria Strokous pointed out in a series of runway images and text posts on her Instagram stories, have included Kate Moss, Jourdan Dunn, Coco Rocha, Natasha Poly, and countless others who continued to walk as many shows as possible even after ascending to the height of the profession. “‘…Whatever the f–k those girls do’ is do their very best to make their way up AND try to make some money so that they can provide for themselves and their families,” she wrote. “Oh, and it’s 70 shows a season by the way and we are all f–king proud of every single one of the girls that did it.”
Elsewhere, Marine Deleeuw, Jac Jagaciak (who posted to her stories after commenting on the original post), Ratner, and Amber Witcomb all posted screen caps of the Love post, captioning them with varying levels of incredulity (Deleeuw, in lieu of a caption, simply added on a horrified Beyoncé face). Teddy Quinlivan posted, and then deleted, a block of text that Sarah Brannon reposted to her own feed, outlining how models are often not afforded the level of privilege on first entering fashion as Jenner was. Quinlivan then posted a block of text from the notes app that encouraged solidarity among models instead of “making disparaging comments about your peers.” Comments on the original Love post also reflect this.
Jenner has not yet responded to the comments from her peers, but below, we’ve rounded up a few more of the best posts from fellow models.
Update, August 21: Jenner’s reps responded to explain that her comments were taken out of context and misunderstood: “She realized the number of shows some models walk a season is closer to 80,” they said. “The point was that it’s their path and ‘the more power to them’. She admires their hard work and dedication. It’s an accomplishment.”
