On HBO Max’s new iteration of Gossip Girl, Tavi Gevinson plays teacher Kate Miller, who is sick and tired of being bullied by the Upper East Siders. But in reality, Tavi was once one of those teens. In fact, she was at one point fashion’s It Girl.
At just 11 years old, Tavi’s rise to fame began when she launched the now-defunct blog Style Rookie. As her very own editor in chief, she frequently posted her OOTD and other musings on trends, some of which caught the attention of the movers and shakers of the fashion industry.
It was only a matter of time before she was sitting front row at some of the biggest runway shows, including that of Chanel couture. As a New Yorker article from 2010 tells it, the teen dazzled Karl Lagerfeld with her charm and intellect. Following their conversation, he praised a young Tavi, telling a Canadian television crew, “She has a fresh eye… She’s not ruined by zillions of bad collections.”