As I rushed down 38th Street yesterday en route to Milly by Michelle Smith (which I hated and therefore refuse to recap) I noticed a model walking in the opposite direction. Of course this isn’t an unusual sight in the Garment District at any time of year, but she looked familiar. And she was! One of my very favorites, Karlie Kloss. Of course I had to say hello. She was darling. And she seemed genuinely thrilled to meet a fellow Missourian. (The seventeen-year-old was born, raised, and still lives in the Saint Louis suburbs.) I asked if she would be going home after this week. 

“No,” she said, “I have to go to L.A. on Friday, and then I have Paris and Milan. Then back to school!”

Oh, of course. Europe.

Back to our Missouri conversation. “It’s funny because there are so many Missourians here in New York!” she said. “There must be something in the water there that makes all the smart kids move to the city.”

Karlie, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Karlie Kloss backstage at Jill Stuart’s Spring 2009 show.