America’s Next Top Model Cycle 15, the high fashion cycle, Tyra Banks and Andre Leon Talley treated editors to a lovely breakfast at Marea in midtown and sat down to chat with us candidly over scrambled eggs and the most delicious pecan sticky buns. (They also looked amazing–Tyra was in clingy gray McQueen shift, ALT was in Prada and Lacoste.)

You might think Tyra and Andre would be an intimidating pair (at least I did), but they are more like a comedy team. And we learned some valuable, hilarious, lessons from them.

Lesson One: Turtle before you smize.
The smize is undeniably important–cycle after cycle of Top Model hopefuls aspire to get it right, and few do. But before you smize, turtle. This goes for models and non models alike. Tyra demonstrated that when a photo is being taken of you head-on you must jut your face out, like a turtle, and the results will be amazing. Most people have a tendency to lean back and smile, which creates extra chins. The turtle thins our your face, and the camera will capture your best self instead your self with three chins. Just don’t get caught doing the turtle on a profile shot. Because then you’ll just look like a turtle.