So the big model news this Fashion Week, aside from Karlie Kloss not walking any shows, is that the CFDA’s new guidelines require catwalkers to show proof that they’re 16 or older in order to walk the shows. How this will be enforced, we’re still not sure. Ford has already sent out a statement confirming they are repping models under the age of 16. And it’s likely other agencies are too–and sending those girls out on castings.

Well, after the Cynthia Rowley show last night, we spotted former model and now actress Rebecca Romijn and figured we’d get an expert opinion on the matter.

“I think that models should be 18 or older,” the stunner told us emphatically.

Why?

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Photo: Getty

Today was a game changer ;) #LovingLife

And then two hours later:

No one is more bummed than me to be missing out on all of the #NYFW fun – sending all my love to NYC! xx

Aw, Karlie, same to you and best of luck in whatever it is. (Movie? It has to be a movie, right? Tell us!!)

A lot goes into making fashion week happen. And despite the proliferation of fashion reality television shows, there is still a lot that you might not know about. So, we decided to ask some of our friends in the industry what their day to day life is like leading up to, during and following fashion week. From the perspective of a designer, a publicist, a show producer, a pit photographer, a makeup artist and more, keep reading to learn how fashion week gets made.

For this installment of “How Fashion Week Gets Made,” we interviewed Casting Director-extraordinaire Julia Samersova, who has worked in the industry for 20 years–first as a model agent, and now as casting director–and counts some of the biggest designers as clients. You may also recognize Julia from E!’s Scouted, where her seasoned wisdom is on full display as she, alongside Michael Flutie, Scott Lipps, and others, search for the next big thing.

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The CFDA’s new health initiative guidelines–which stipulate, among other things, that models be ID’d to show they are above 16 years of age–have been met, for the most part, with glowing support from the fashion industry. Or so it seems. Because despite the industry’s best intentions, actually following the new rules is a whole other ballgame.

Designers Tory Burch and Tommy Hilfiger both told the New York Times that models that are either too young or too thin are still being sent to them by casting agencies. Burch said she was concerned for some models who walked through her door during this season’s casting. “There is still an issue, and there is still a lot of work to be done,” she said. “There have been positive steps. But I see some girls coming in who are really emaciated. It is still a problem.”

Here’s the problem:

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Photo: Getty

New York Fashion Week runways may lose the best legs in the business this season, if we’re to believe the rumors. Thanks to the ever-alert eyes over at Fashin, there’s some Twitter rumbling that Karlie Kloss is skipping the season for a “big” opportunity.

CNN’s fashion reporter, Alina Cho (check out the profile on her in the New York Daily News–she’s the new Elsa Klensch!) tweeted (via @AlinaChoCNN) this nugget last night:

HEARING: @karliekloss cancelled all catwalk appearances in NY for a big opportunity… #nyfw #backstagepass #cnn

What? No Karlie? The model’s twitter account has been silent, so we’ll have to see how this develops. One hilarious commenter at Fashin speculates that maybe she’s been snatched up as an exclusive at Burberry (Kloss made headlines this week by saying she’d love to walk in Burberry’s show).

Other possibilities: Maybe she has commitments with Victoria’s Secret, which took her on for the first time this year. We’re hoping it’s an acting gig. We could totally see it.

UPDATE: Isabel Wilkinson (from the Daily Beast) tweeted the following:

CONFIRMED: Karlie Kloss won’t walk in New York Fashion Week this season because of an “engagement that has come up,” says her spokesperson

She won’t walk in #NYFW but it’s “very likely” that Kloss will walk in Milan and Paris, spokesperson says.

Whatever the reason, we’re going to miss seeing Karlie this week!

In this new NYFW pump-up video, directed by Sebastien Haddouk & Julien Gallico, the Next Paris models pose and primp in front of an imaginary mirror, dance like crazy, smell their pits and just kind of freak out in general. In other words, it’s exactly what goes on in our apartments before fashion week gets underway. Except, of course, we’re not supermodels–and sadly, unlike Karlie Kloss, we’re not sure we could pull off that slit-to-there Anthony Vaccarello dress quite so elegantly. (Seriously, does she live in that thing?)

Watch the full video after the jump.

Last night loads of leggy models–A-listers like Shalom Harlow, Doutzen Kroes, Coco Rocha and Crystal Renn among them–gathered at the Standard in the Meatpacking to sip free vodka drinks over loud music. At first glance, a typical fashion party.

Only it wasn’t. These models were gathered to celebrate the launch of the Model Alliance, a non-profit organization founded by Sara Ziff dedicated to “helping models in the American fashion industry organize for safe, fair, and healthy standards in their workplace.”

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They may be flawless supermodels now but even the Victoria’s Secret Angels were once inexperienced teenagers going through the typical awkward milestones–first kisses and all.

To get you in the Valentine’s Day spirit (which we tend to forget during Fashion Week madness), watch Doutzen Kroes, Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, Erin Heatherton, Lily Aldridge and Lais Ribeiro–all scantily clad in VS undies–talk about the first time they ever smooched a guy. Turns out that being incredibly hot does not automatically make you a good kisser: Doutzen says her first kiss was “not so good,” while Lily cops to feeling embarrassed and running away afterwards. Erin’s first kiss, on the other hand, lead to a very, very sticky situation literally).

We won’t give the whole thing away but we have to say, hearing about their first kiss snafus, is making us feel a whole lot better about our teenage awkwardness.

Modeling and modesty are two words that seem mutually exclusive, but a Muslim fashion designer in New York City is trying to change that. A new agency for Muslim models, called Underwraps, is launching next week during New York Fashion Week. Its goal? To prove that models can be gorgeous, stylish, and yet still maintain their religious beliefs.

Nailah Lymus is an American-born Muslim whose parents converted to Islam before she was born. She adheres to the modesty tenets of the religion, which require that clothes be loose enough so as not to reveal your shape, and that basically the only body parts that can be visible are your face, hands and feet. Sound challenging? It doesn’t have to be. I chatted with Lymus this week about her background, Muslims in fashion, and her plans to launch a modeling agency.

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The supermodels return: Yesterday it was Linda Evangelista in Love, and today it’s Helena Christensen in Reeboks…and little else. The 43-year-old super gives Karlie Kloss a (leggy) run for her money in a bandage bodysuit and sneakers. Christensen was in a Reebok ad back in 2010, where she wore absolutely nothing except sneakers and a growl, so this ad is tame by comparison.

The Telegraph reports that the ad coincides with a European survey about women’s satisfaction conducted by Reebok. So what satisfies Christensen? Reading in bed, hanging out with her family, and staying fit. We’d be pretty damn satisfied if we were that fit, too.

Photo: LOVE via Fashion Copious

We’ve already seen a sneak preview of Rachel Zoe as a vampire and Kate Moss and Lara Stone as flowery cats, but now we know who covers Love issue 7: one of the original supers, Linda Evangelista. Shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, and styled by Katie Grand, the pics were inspired by punk artist Jamie Reid. The cover proclaims “After Taste: Celebrating the end of elegance with Linda Evangelista,” but we’d argue that she looks pretty elegant anyway, smeared lipstick and all.

Evangelista is still sporting a trademark short crop and has her brows dyed here–and we’d argue she can hold her own with any new teenager out there. We’re loving this trend of 80s and 90s supers scoring covers and editorials.

The full magazine will be available February 6. Click through to see the two images.

Photo: Mario Testino/VOGUE

Remember that gorgeous editorial in Vogue’s December issue featuring Karlie Kloss and Eddie Redmayne as “a couple of sinners on Ibiza—she, wearing printed resortwear generating plenty of heat; he, trying hard to keep his cool.” The spread, titled “Temptation Island” and lensed by Mario Testino, seems to have spawned a real life romance. We hear, from a well-placed source, that Kloss and Redmayne are currently dating. We haven’t seen them together outside of the pages of Vogue yet, but they make one extremely good looking couple.

Here at Fashionista, Tom Brady is generally known as “that football player who’s married to Gisele.” This Sunday she’ll be a good wife and support her husband as he plays in the Super Bowl against the New York Giants. To help in his quest for a Super Bowl ring (the fact that there’s a ring involved makes us slightly more interested in the game), Gisele is using her pull to enlist the help of a pretty powerful guy: God.

The New York Post somehow got its hands on an email that Gisele sent to friends and family, and made it their COVER story:

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Ford Models outfitted their girls in the tradition of lazy-luxe glamor: white silkscreen Ford sweatshirts, uplifted by dramatic period effects: floor-sweeping skirts and dusters, petticoats, headdresses, feathered boleros, fur stoles and coats that will make you want to stroke your computer screen. IMG has to be the most striking package by far, turning their already statuesque models into literal works of art, superimposing their likenesses into iconic western paintings that are as recognizable to the art history geek as the models are to the fashion-obsessed.

DNA, Women, Supreme, and Major kept theirs simple–black and white, or neutral hued shots of their girls. Soul Artist and Muse embraced the graphic vibe: Muse imbued each shot with the small red and green dots and bold lettering characteristic of comic book art, while Soul Artist framed each girl’s shot with elaborate doodles you might find in the notebook of a college student at the end of a a three-hour seminar.

Click through to see some of our favorite show cards, and a few of the familiar faces who will be walking in New York this season.

I’m 5’5” and a size 6, with a not-insignificant ass. I don’t see many models out there who look like me. In fact, very few women–no matter what their sizes–probably see themselves reflected in the ads we’re bombarded with every single day. There seem to be two distinct types of models–the traditional beanpole “straight size” fashion model, and the zaftig hourglass on the plus-size end of the spectrum.

When these two worlds collide, as they did recently in a controversial editorial that appeared in the online publication, PLUS Model Magazine (wherein a plus-size and straight size model were shown naked and embracing), one gets a sense of how emotionally charged this issue can be. Women on both sides of the scale’s needle feel attacked for being too big or too small. But what about those who fall somewhere in between?

Katie Halchishick, 26, has been working as a plus-size model since she was discovered at 17, being repped along the way by agencies like Wilhelmina and Ford. We caught up with Halchishick, who was recently featured on ABC News for her campaign “Healthy is the New Skinny,” to hear her story.

After being signed as a plus-size model as a teenager, Halchishick’s agency told her she could work more if she gained weight–and she obliged (unwittingly) by gaining the freshman 15–or 20 in her case–after starting at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She hit a max of 200 pounds (size 14), and worked the most she ever would as a model, often banking six figures in a year. Then she met her boyfriend, who’s a physical trainer.

Halchishick ended up losing 50 pounds–and subsequently all her modeling clients–when she got down to 145 and a size 8. She was left with a few lingerie clients and doing commercials for diet pills. “As I got smaller I had to wear fat suits and padding, and that worked [keeping clients] for a while,” she told me. At this point her agency told her if she got down to a size 4, they could probably find her some commercial modeling work. Halchishick hated how she looked and felt, and is now holding steady somewhere in between her highest and lowest weight. And she’s now on a mission.

Katie before, after, and now

Katie ended up leaving her last agency and started her own about a year ago, called Natural Model Management. Its goal is to promote the mantra “Healthy is the new skinny” and many of the girls who the agency reps are in traditional modeling no-man’s-land: sizes 6-10. Is this a revolutionary idea?