Karlie Kloss Is A Force for Change
When Karlie Kloss landed her first major modelling contract at 18 years old, she gifted herself a Cartier ring. “I remember we went to the store, and I got it engraved on the inside,” the multi-hyphenate model, entrepreneur, and media mogul tells ELLE. The piece was a wearable reminder that one of the most important investments you can make is in yourself — and buying herself a present quickly became a long-standing tradition to celebrate her own achievements. “In my career, I’ve made it a point to buy jewellery when I hit a milestone,” she explains. “It takes you back to a specific memory.”
If rings are a marker of pivotal moments, Kloss’ jewellery box must be overflowing. Over the last few years, her coding bootcamp for girls, Kode with Klossy, has expanded to become an international initiative, helping rewrite the rules of who can be successful in tech. She has invested in AI-powered fashion start-ups and spoken out against devastating abortion bans in America. And two months ago, Bedford Media, the firm she formed with her billionaire investor husband, Joshua Kushner, announced it had bought one of the country’s most fabled magazines, Life, adding to their growing media portfolio.
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Fittingly, Kloss was a guest at this year’s annual Cartier Women’s Initiative, which provides female entrepreneurs with the necessary tools and capital to grow their ideas. She joined all 33 Cartier fellows in Shenzhen, China, for a presentation recognizing their remarkable inventions and advancements in solving some of the world’s most pressing issues. Among the awardees (who took home anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 in grant funding) was Erica Cole of No Limbits, an accessible clothing brand based in the U.S.; Jiwon Park, who developed a sexual wellness brand called SAIB to help women in South Korea take charge of their reproductive health; and Singaporean doctor Lynne Lim, inventor of the world’s first handheld robotic device that allows doctors to easily insert ear tubes.
The program concluded with an honorary ceremony, where Kloss delivered a powerful speech about collective action, gender equality, and the importance of entrepreneurial spirit. Below, she talks with ELLE about her own work in the tech industry, why media is worth investing in, and the one piece of “self-love” jewellery she will pass down to her kids.
On the future of women in tech
'I’ve been doing this work for almost a decade now, and so much has changed in ways that make me very optimistic. I went to a public school in Missouri. I’m 31 years old, so it’s been a while since I was in high school, but back when I was a student, they did not have computer science programs. Now they do, and so do many, many, many public schools and private schools across the United States. There are now entry points for women and girls to start to learn how to code. It is much more understood how much technology is a part of shaping our world in every industry—not just in Silicon Valley, but also in music, media, finance, and business. But there’s a lot more, unfortunately, that continues to need to happen.'
On growing Kode with Klossy into a global nonprofit
'Kode With Klossy focuses on creating inclusive spaces that teach highly technical skills. We have AI machine learning and web dev. We have mobile app development and data science. They all are very creative applications of technology. Ultimately, right now, our programs are rooted in teaching the fundamentals of code and scaling the amount of people in our programs. This summer, we’re going to have 5,000 scholarships for free that we are giving to students to be a part of Kode With Klossy. We’ve trained hundreds of teachers through the years. We’ll have a few hundred instructors and instructor assistants this summer alone in our program. So what we’re focused on is continuing to ignite creative passion around technology.'
On using technology to advance the fashion industry
'We’re just seeing the very beginning of what’s ahead and what will be possible. That’s why it’s so important people realise that tech is not just for tech alone. It is [a tool to] drive better solutions across all industries and all businesses. Fashion is one of the biggest polluters of water. The industry has a lot of big problems to solve, and that’s part of why I’m optimistic and excited about more people seeing the overlap between the two. There is intersection in these spaces, and we can drive solutions in scalable ways when we see these intersections.'
On embracing your fears
'Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter, is an amazing entrepreneur and somebody I feel lucky to call a friend. She asked me years ago, and it’s always stuck with me through different personal and professional moments, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” That has always resonated, because we can get so stuck in our heads about being afraid of all sorts of different things—afraid of what other people will think, afraid of failure.'
On the value of community in entrepreneurship
'It takes a lot of courage for anyone [to be an entrepreneur]. It doesn’t matter your gender, your age, your experience level, that’s where community really does make a difference. It’s not just a talking point. So many of our Kode With Klossy scholars have come back as instructor assistants, and are now in peer leadership positions. So many of them have gone on to win hackathons and scholarships. It comes down to this collective community that continues to support and foster new connections among each other.'
On breathing new life into Life magazine
'Part of why I’m so excited about what we can build and what we are building with Bedford [Media, the company launched by Kloss and her husband, Joshua Kushner] is this intersection of a creative space like media—print media—and how you can continue to drive innovation with technology. And so that’s something that we’re very focused on, how to integrate the two. Lots more that we’re going to share at the right time, but we’re heads down on building the team and the company right now. I’m super excited.'
On showing up for the people you love
'I have two young babies, and I want to be the best mom I can be. So many of us are juggling so many different responsibilities and identities, both personally and professionally. Having women in leadership positions is so important, because our lived experiences are different from our male counterparts. And by the way, theirs is different from ours. It matters that, in leadership positions, to have different lived experiences across ages, genders, geographies, and ethnicities. It ultimately leads to better outcomes. All that to say, I’m just trying the best I can every day to show up for the people that I love and do what I can to help others.'
On the intrinsic value of heirloom pieces
'For our wedding, my husband bought me a beautiful Cartier watch. Some day I will pass that on to our daughter, if I’m lucky enough to have one. Or [I’ll pass it on to] my son; I have two sons. For our wedding, I also bought myself beautiful diamond earrings. There was something very symbolic about that to me, like, okay, I can also buy myself something. That’s why jewellery, to me—as we’re talking about female entrepreneurship and women in business and women in tech—is something that’s so emotional and personal. So I bought myself these vintage diamond earrings from the ’20s, with this beautiful, rich history of where they had been and who had owned them and wore them before. That’s the power of jewelry, whether it’s vintage or new, you create memories and it marks moments in life and in time. And then to be able to share that with future generations is something I find really beautiful.'
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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