High schooler and creator of online magazine Rookie, Tavi Gevinson is busy fashioning a DIY media empire that speaks to teens. 
 
 Column One Tavi Gevinson rockets from Rookie to teen pop-culture heights High schooler and creator of online magazine Rookie, Tavi Gevinson is busy fashioning a DIY media empire that speaks to teens. 
 
 In her Beatlemania schoolgirl outfit — gray miniskirt, knee-highs and electric-blue suede shoes — Tavi Gevinson looks like any other fashion-obsessed teen as she wanders the crowded aisles of Los Angeles' American Rag Cie. 
 
 "I can't afford, like, anything here on my allowance," the 17-year-old says, scanning the store's horizon for any gems she might have missed. 
 
 She pulls out her iPhone and responds to a text. 
 
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 "My dad, he'll be here in about half an hour to pick me up," she says, heading toward a carousel rack of vintage-image postcards — "the one thing I actually can afford!" 
 
 Gevinson is decisive as she plucks out certain moody postcards and quickly discards others. When the wobbly rack catches on the carpet and fails to turn, the petite Gevinson lifts the metal display and firmly plants it a few inches away, where it swirls freely. 
 
 "There" she says sweetly. "I'll take these four." After paying, Gevinson tucks the cards away in her floral backpack. "Now, what were we talking about again?" 
 
 One can forgive the high school senior for being a bit distracted. After flying in from Chicago, she was up late the night before finishing an essay. But the assignment wasn't for school. It was the editor's letter for Rookie, the online pop-culture magazine she started when she was 15; now she oversees a staff of about 80. There was also a photo shoot this morning, followed by a meeting with her agent and then another whirlwind shopping trip in Hollywood. 
 
 She will appear at Skylight Books later to sign copies of "Rookie Yearbook Two," an annual print anthology of Rookie's best online writing paired with original content from the likes of Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, Judy Blume and singer-songwriter Grimes. The store expects an adoring mob of teenage fans for Gevinson, called "the future of journalism" by no less than Lady Gaga. 
 
 Part Tina Brown, part Dorothy Parker, the quick-witted Gevinson has the ear — and Tumblr accounts — of a new generation of young women. Not to mention the eye of the media, the fashion world and, lately, Hollywood filmmakers. 
 
 She was just 11 when she started the Style Rookie fashion blog out of her Oak Park, Ill., bedroom. Soon she was sitting on the front lines of New York's Fashion Week. Fast-forward to 2013: appearances on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" and "The Colbert Report," international speaking engagements and a role in the film "Enough Said" opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. 
 
 With more than 4 million page views a month, Rookie is emerging as a DIY multiplatform media empire of sorts for Girl America. 
 
 The goal has become to make people feel included, that they're cool enough or smart enough.” — Tavi Gevinson Share this quote 
 
 "I'd felt like there wasn't a publication for teenagers that was respected. Or that I, myself, or my friends could really relate to," Gevinson says, settling into a booth at the cafe next door to American Rag, her creamy skin, crimson lipstick and blond bob giving her something of a "Ghost World"-era Scarlett Johansson quality. She slurps her lemonade. 
 
 "One thing I'm very proud of is that Rookie has a lot of legitimacy in publishing and music journalism and fashion. As it's grown, the goal has become more to make people feel included, that they're cool enough or smart enough." 
 
 Rookie beginnings 
 
 The original Style Rookie blog impressed journalist Anaheed Alani so much she offered unsolicited help. 
 
 "She emailed me and said: 'I work at the New York Times, and I will quit my job to help you,'" Gevinson says. "It was clear we were on the same wavelength. She's now second in command and my partner in a lot of ways." 
 
 Alani, 43, now Rookie's editorial director, has no issues working for a teenage boss. 
 
 "Tavi's one of the best bosses I've had," Alani says. "My rule for bosses and therapists is they have to be smarter than I am — and Tavi completely fits that bill." 
 
 An instant success when it launched in late 2011, Rookie now boasts jewelry and makeup ads and hosts in-person Rookie events in cities across the country, such as an Urban Outfitters-sponsored road trip last year that included crown-making workshops — Gevinson feels her now-signature floral crowns show "a pride in one's girliness." 
 
 In addition to material from the site, the Rookie yearbooks feature exclusive interviews with major pop cultural figures such as Morrissey, Chris Ware and Emma Watson; they're juxtaposed against personal essays by teens on universal issues such as sex, racism, friendship and feminism. 
 
 Boiled down, Gevinson's message might be "embrace yourself" — and it seems to be resonating. 
 
 "She's really, really popular with L.A. girls," says 16-year-old Xulani Akel, a sophomore at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. "It's so amazing that she's so young and so successful. I'm worried about getting, like, one B, and she has this whole company thing that she's doing and that she really enjoys. That sets the bar really high!" 
 
 Fans at a bookstore 
 
 Skylight Books is filling up. The teen girls filter in, some wearing brightly colored floral headbands, others in swingy skirts and glittering prom crowns. Most carry a certain dog-eared book tucked under their arms as they swing between intensely focused and bubbling over with excitement. 
 
 Like a religious pilgrimage, many come bearing gifts cradled in their arms for Gevinson, who at the moment sits in the store's office loft, overlooking the main floor. Chitchatting with the two Rookie contributors who will be reading with her tonight, Gevinson looks very much her age. 
 
 "This'll be fun. Who wants to go first?" she asks them, as if the event were an impromptu school talent show. 
 
 Moments later, however, when Gevinson takes the podium before a now settled-in crowd of about 150 rapt girls, she is preternaturally poised as she faces the crowd. She holds her iPhone out in front of her with two hands, as if it were stiff essay paper, and reads off the screen in an adult, measured tone. 
 
 How is she able to ingest so much pop culture daily, interview her heroes, blog prolifically, write essays for Rookie and oversee her staff — all while attending high school? It's simple time management, she says earlier in the day, at the cafe on La Brea Avenue. 
 
 Gevinson spends nearly every sliver of downtime listening to podcasts or music — most recently Lorde, Taylor Swift and Kanye West — while walking to school, for example, or watching old episodes of "Freaks and Geeks" and "My So-Called Life" at night. Study hall, she says, is a perfect time to read other books she finds more relevant in the long run, like "Girl Power" by Marisa Meltzer. 
 
 Such efficiency, however, is not without sacrifice. 
 
 "There are compromises," Gevinson says. "Like there have been times when my grades have suffered or I can't visit my boyfriend when I'd like to because I have a number of interviews that day. But it's worth it." 
 
 Still, Gevinson's parents have made sure to keep her life "full of normal teenage stuff," says her father, Steve. She attends the local public high school and recently got an allowance increase. She doesn't yet earn a salary from Rookie — though that may change soon, he says, as the site becomes more profitable — and speaking engagement fees go into her savings. The total sum of her liquid assets from day to day is her allowance: $25 a week. 
 
 She left the room and I said, 'I want her.'” — "Enough Said" director Nicole Holofcener Share this quote 
 
 "It's a nice little fiction that we're living out because she has this bank account," he says. "But she likes living that way. We like her living that way." 
 
 Like many proud "pop culture nerds," Gevinson has a not-so-subtle obsessive streak. She might get up at 3 a.m. to rearrange all her books, she says, and not only journals her life's every happening, from monumental to mundane, but also "curates" her peripheral pop culture experiences to match her moods. 
 
 "Sophomore year I had my heart broken by a boy. I loved the feeling of heartbreak with dressing in nightgowns from the '70s, lighting candles and listening to Heart and Carole King," she says. "I documented it all. It's like making a bunch of little movies. It makes me feel like I'm in control and everything has a place in the world." 
 
 These days, Gevinson's mood is often a mix of excitement and trepidation. She's awaiting graduation in May and has applied to New York University, Barnard, Brown and Wesleyan — though she'd like to take a year off first to live in New York and focus on Rookie as well as other creative ventures, such as acting. 
 
 "Enough Said" director Nicole Holofcener has no trouble envisioning Gevinson as a movie star. 
 
 "Tavi walked in [to auditions], this little lovely thing, an angel with red lips and pink cheeks," Holofcener says. "She was maybe more nervous than someone who's been in a million films, but that nervousness was so natural and vulnerable and sweet. She left the room and I said, 'I want her.'" 
 
 How does all this high-profile success translate in the halls, on an everyday basis, at school in suburban Illinois? 
 
 Stirring the straw in her lemonade, Gevinson plays down her success, insisting that most kids at her school are either unaware of her growing fame or they don't particularly care. 
 
 Suddenly, three eager heads poke out of a nearby booth, their hands waving furiously at Gevinson. "Hi, Tavi!" they squeal in unison. "We love you." 
 
 Gevinson shrugs and breaks into a little-girl smile herself, giggling at the absurdity. "Oh, I guess they recognize me," she says. 
 
 On her way out of the cafe, Gevinson pauses at the door. 
 
 "I just hate 'voice of a generation' stuff," she says, balking at the suggestion. "You put someone on a pedestal and of course they can't represent all of feminism or all people their age or whatever." 
 
 And with that, Gevinson scurries out to the parking lot to meet her dad, her books and notes for the evening's reading bundled in her arms. 
 
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 Follow @latgreatreads on Twitter ||||| The highly anticipated Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue cover was finally unveiled Tuesday morning, and the cover girl is a fresh face to the pages of SI. Instead of tapping a swimsuit issue regular, the editors of SI Swim went with newcomer Danielle Herrington, who was first featured as a Rookie in 2017. 
 
 So who exactly is the 24-year-old up-and-comer? Read on to find out how she got her big break, which SI Swim veteran inspired her to get into modeling and what she hopes to do next. 
 
 Her big break was B.I.G. 
 
 Her magazine and red carpet debuts weren’t like the humble beginnings of some stars. Her very first big photo shoot was for SI Swim last year as part of the Rookie class (which includes Olivia Culpo, Hunter McGrady and Ebonee Davis this year). And she told FOX News that she was so nervous on set last year that she couldn’t eat anything before the shoot. 
 
 Ben Watts for Sports Illustrated 
 
 “It took place in Fiji and I was really nervous,” she revealed. “You know how you’re so nervous your knees shake? That was me. SI was my first big job modeling so I definitely felt the pressure within me.” 
 
 And as if that’s not impressive enough, her first walk down the runway was during Philipp Plein’s star-studded spring 2017 show in September (which also featured Irina Shayk and Adriana Lima on the catwalk). 
 
 “I’m so grateful to Carine [Roitfeld] and her team for casting me in the Philipp Plein show, which was my New York Fashion Week debut,” she told CR Fashion Book. “I’m obsessed with Future and Nicki Minaj, who both performed, but my most starstruck moment by far was being backstage with Adriana Lima. She’s even more beautiful in real life.” 
 
 Ben Watts/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 
 
 She made her NYFW return at Plein’s fall 2018 show last weekend. 
 
 She’s from Compton, California. 
 
 She may be Bushwick-based now, but Herrington grew up in Compton, Califorina, and had a childhood that she describes as “pretty normal.” 
 
 “A lot of the time after school, we would go to my grandma’s house because my parents were working,” she shared. “We would swim, ride our bikes down the street, we had a trampoline, scooters, everything! I went to a private school so I guess I got away from the bad action.” 
 
 RELATED: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models Answer Everyone’s Burning Question: ‘How Many Bikinis Do You Own?’ 
 
 She has a very low-key beauty routine. 
 
 Herrington calls herself “pretty chill” when asked to describe her beauty rituals. “My hair is a weave, so I just kind of wet it, put a little conditioner in, and let it air dry. It’s so easy,” she said. “I don’t really have acne, and just wash my face with the Neutrogena orange pump soap ($5.99), then moisturize with some basic cream like Pond’s ($4.99). My only splurge is the GlamGlow mask, which I use a lot.” 
 
 She feels sexiest when she’s spritzing perfume. 
 
 She told GQ she feels most sexy when she’s, “putting on lotion and my favorite perfume after a hot shower.” 
 
 One of her modeling idols is Tyra Banks. 
 
 Herrington revealed that she always aspired to have a career like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit two-time cover star Tyra Banks. “I just remember Tyra Banks being on the cover and that’s where it all started for me,” she said. “That’s what really made me pursue modeling. SI was a goal from that point, from seeing Tyra on the cover. It was love at first sight… everything happened naturally.” 
 
 WATCH: Sailor Brinkley Cook Spent Hours Deciding What Words to Paint on Her Body for ‘SI’s’ ‘In Her Words’ Campaign 
 
 She wants her career to span between swim and high-fashion. 
 
 Even though Herrington’s making major moves in the swim world right now, she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed into one modeling category. She told CR Fashion Book that she hopes the industry has room for someone who can do both swim and high-fashion. 
 
 “I started modeling when I was 13 years old, and I already had boobs and a butt then, with a baby face. I’m pretty much the same now,” she said. “Everybody knows me as a ‘swim’ girl, but I’m trying to get more into high fashion. I’m not like a ‘curve’ model, but I have curves, right? It seems the industry is finally making room for more kinds of beauty now. ||||| "Can you put Post Malone back on?" Amanda Bynes asks in a way that's both confidently decisive and exceedingly polite. She's modeling a pretty beaded and crystal-studded silver top that she designed herself, her long honey blonde hair parted to the side like a '90s cover girl, while posing serenely as the photographer snaps her picture. 
 
 If you were to ignore the incredibly 2018 musical reference and shut your eyes, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd walked onto a photo shoot ten years ago. Back then, Bynes regularly graced covers for publications like Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan or Seventeen while she was promoting films like What a Girl Wants, She's the Man or Hairspray. But it's not 2008 — it's 2018 — and as any fan or casual reader of the Internet knows, a lot has changed, not least of which is that Bynes has spent the last several years retired from acting and avoiding the spotlight. 
 
 But things are changing again. --- 
 
 A day after the shoot, I meet Bynes on campus at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, commonly known as FIDM, in downtown Los Angeles. The 32-year-old has been enrolled there since 2014 and is receiving her Associate's of Art degree in Merchandise Product Development this month before embarking on a Bachelor's degree immediately thereafter in January. She gives me a tour of campus, and as we pass through the grassy quad, we chat about our shared love of Issa Rae's HBO series Insecure; Bynes points out the apartment building that lead character Molly is supposed to live in on the show. We wander around an administrative floor in the main building, pausing to admire vintage Dior sketches and a mannequin wearing one of the designer's iconic late-'40s-era "Bar" suits. A series of artfully chic administrators — the kind you could picture gracing the pages of Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style blog or swapping bangles with Iris Apfel — pop out of offices, lighting up when they see Bynes and greeting her with hugs. She smiles when she sees each of them, stopping to chat with a bright-eyed warmth. 
 
 Jacket: Sandro, Shirt: Frame, Jeans: Levi's, Boots: Dries Van Noten, Ring: Mondo Mondo 
 
 During our campus visit, Bynes talks about the classes she's taking and her surprise at enjoying her Merchandising Math course. "It's a class on mark-up percentage, mark-up dollar, retail cost and everything about selling your product," she explains. "I never really liked math before, but I like this class." And "I'm getting a 96 in it." Later, when we talk about how Bynes might want to use her FIDM degrees, she quickly expresses interest in designing a full line one day. But, she adds, "I want to get back into acting first." --- 
 
 As a child, Bynes had the kind of acting career that any theatrical kid inclined to the spotlight would envy. Growing up the youngest of three children, Bynes started acting in youth plays early on and got an agent when she was 7. Her natural talent and impressive comedic timing quickly booked her a series of commercials — over twenty in a year and half period, she says — for brands like Barbie and Nestlé Crunch. But her big break, as it were, happened when she was attending a children's comedy camp at LA's legendary Laugh Factory and a Nickelodeon producer saw her perform. She spoke to her parents after the show and encouraged them to let their daughter audition for the cable channel. She did and was offered a role on All That, the seminal "SNL-with-tweens"-esque sketch show on Nick that '90s kids continue to look fondly on and that regularly fuels nostalgic Buzzfeed listicles. Like her peers, Bynes had been obsessed with the series before landing a part on it; she even recalls making her mom stay cooped up in a hotel room with her while on vacation so she could catch a marathon. "It was a dream come true," she says of being cast on the show. "It was unbelievable for me." 
 
 Three years in, Nickelodeon producers told Bynes they wanted to create an entire series centered around her, inspired by The Carol Burnett Show. The result — The Amanda Show — was a hit and cemented Bynes as one of the funniest and most promising performers of her generation. After three seasons, it felt like time to move on, and Bynes began transitioning into films. At 15, she shot Big Fat Liar opposite Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz before TV came calling again. She was offered another series centered around her, this time for network television and thus more grown-up audiences. The result was What I Like About You on the WB, which had Bynes starring opposite Jennie Garth in an Odd Couple-esque set-up, playing two sisters living in New York City. 
 
 Turtleneck: Eckhaus Latta, Top: Amanda Bynes 
 
 During this time, Bynes also continued to pursue film projects, shooting What a Girl Wants opposite your mother's crush, Colin Firth, and She's the Man, for which Bynes can fairly be credited with launching Channing Tatum's career. "I totally fought for Channing [to get cast in] that movie because he wasn't famous yet. He'd just done a Mountain Dew commercial and I was like, 'This guy's a star — every girl will love him!' But [the producers] were like, 'He's so much older than all of you!' And I was like, 'It doesn't matter! Trust me!'" 
 
 But She's the Man, a modern update on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that saw Bynes play a teen girl dressing in drag to pose as her brother, led to, in Bynes' words, "an interesting experience" after it wrapped. "When the movie came out and I saw it," she says, "I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn't like how I looked when I was a boy." She paused. "I've never told anyone that." Seeing herself with short hair and sideburns was "a super strange and out-of-body experience. It just really put me into a funk." 
 
 Fortunately, an exciting, big project was right around the bend: Hairspray, the 2007 remake of John Waters' cult classic. "That movie to this day was the most amazing experience I've ever had on a set," she recalls of getting to sing, dance and act alongside co-stars like John Travolta and Zac Efron. 2007 also saw Bynes star in a Snow White-goes-to-college teen flick, Sydney White. 
 
 --- 
 
 2007 may well go down as one of the high (or, perhaps, low) points in paparazzi culture, with tabloid print media colliding with the nascent gossip blogosphere to drive up the demand for pap shots of young starlets leaving Hollywood clubs or getting into questionable exploits outside late-night mini-marts. But Bynes managed to stay above the fray. 
 
 Top: Richard Quinn, Jeans: Goldsign 
 
 "I never really liked going out that much," she says of those days. "I [only] started going out around 25 years old." She says she didn't really drink much as a teenager and "never liked the taste of alcohol. I could not stomach it." 
 
 But, she says, "I started smoking marijuana when I was 16. Even though everyone thought I was the 'good girl,' I did smoke marijuana from that point on." She hastens to add, "I didn't get addicted [then] and I wasn't abusing it. And I wasn't going out and partying or making a fool of myself... yet." She says this last part with a self-aware laugh. 
 
 As time went on, however, her youthful experimentation with marijuana evolved into trying other, harder recreational drugs. "Later on it progressed to doing molly and ecstasy," she says matter-of-factly. "[I tried] cocaine three times but I never got high from cocaine. I never liked it. It was never my drug of choice." One drug she admits she started taking on a regular basis, however, was Adderall. "I definitely abused Adderall," she says. 
 
 Around the time of Hairspray, she remembers "reading an article in a magazine that [called Adderall] 'the new skinny pill' and they were talking about how women were taking it to stay thin. I was like, 'Well, I have to get my hands on that.'" Like many of her fellow millennials experimenting with the amphetamine in their teenage or college-aged years, Bynes says she was able to get a prescription after going "to a psychiatrist and faking the symptoms of ADD." 
 
 Coat: Moschino 
 
 Looking back, she thinks Adderall played a big role in her behavior on set filming Hall Pass in the spring of 2010, one of the first instances when the public started to get an inkling that something might be amiss with the young actress. "When I was doing Hall Pass, I remember being in the trailer and I used to chew the Adderall tablets because I thought they made me [more] high [that way]," she says. "I remember chewing on a bunch of them and literally being scatterbrained and not being able to focus on my lines or memorize them for that matter." 
 
 While filming, Bynes says she "remembers seeing my image on the screen and literally tripping out and thinking my arm looked so fat because it was in the foreground or whatever and I remember rushing off set and thinking, Oh my god, I look so bad." 
 
 "I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn't like the way I looked as a boy." 
 
 It was "the mixture of being so high that I couldn't remember my lines and not liking my appearance" that prompted Bynes to pull out of the film — despite reports that later emerged to the contrary alleging she'd been fired. "I made a bunch of mistakes but I wasn't fired. I did leave... it was definitely completely unprofessional of me to walk off and leave them stranded when they'd spent so much money on a set and crew and camera equipment and everything." 
 
 Things started to spiral from there. A few months after walking away from Hall Pass, Bynes recalls attending a screening of her last film, Easy A, and "having a different reaction than everyone else to the movie." Not unlike her discomfort on the Hall Pass set, she elaborates that "I literally couldn't stand my appearance in that movie and I didn't like my performance. I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it." She continues, "I was high on marijuana when I saw that but for some reason it really started to affect me. I don't know if it was a drug-induced psychosis or what, but it affected my brain in a different way than it affects other people. It absolutely changed my perception of things." 
 
 Jacket: Sandro, Shirt: Frame, Jeans: Levi's, Boots: Dries Van Noten, Ring: Mondo Mondo 
 
 "I saw it and I was convinced that I should never be on camera again and I officially retired on Twitter, which was, you know, also stupid," she says wryly. "If I was going to retire [the right way], I should've done it in a press statement — but I did it on Twitter. Real classy! But, you know, I was high and I was like, 'You know what? I am so over this' so I just did it. But it was really foolish and I see that now. I was young and stupid." 
 
 After retiring from acting, Bynes found herself feeling adrift, having quit what had been basically, up until this point, a lifelong pursuit. "I just had no purpose in life. I'd been working my whole life and [now] I was doing nothing." She continues, "I had a lot of time on my hands and I would 'wake and bake' and literally be stoned all day long." 
 
 Around this time, Bynes said she started "hanging out with a seedier crowd and I isolated a lot... I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me." She sums up her life back then as one in which she "was just stuck at home, getting high, watching TV and tweeting." 
 
 Turtleneck: Eckhaus Latta, Top: Amanda Bynes, Pants: Ganni 
 
 It's this last activity that perhaps unfortunately causes Bynes the most anguish to think about. While she can look back on her decision to announce her retirement with a tweet with humor and equanimity, there are other, more painful 140-character episodes that are difficult to talk about. She declines to get into specifics about any of the more alarming or hurtful messages she sent about fellow celebrities or family members back then (including that infamously vulgar message about a certain Toronto rapper) but throughout our conversation she expresses deep regret and sorrow about any pain or hurt her behavior may have caused. 
 
 "I'm really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said. I can't turn back time but if I could, I would. And I'm so sorry to whoever I hurt and whoever I lied about because it truly eats away at me. It makes me feel so horrible and sick to my stomach and sad," Bynes says. "Everything I worked my whole life to achieve, I kind of ruined it all through Twitter." But, she adds, "it's definitely not Twitter's fault — it's my own fault." 
 
 --- 
 
 "I've been sober for almost four years now," Bynes tells me, crediting her parents with "really helping me get back on track." But as anyone who has gone through substance abuse issues of their own or witnessed a friend or loved one navigate those challenges knows, sobriety isn't exactly easy and credit must be given to Bynes herself. 
 
 Top: Richard Quinn, Jeans: Goldsign 
 
 "She wanted to get well," Toni Hohberg, the president and chief executive of FIDM, tells me, attributing Bynes' continued sobriety as a testament, in large part, to this genuine desire to overcome her struggles. "She's tasted the worst of the world and she's come through it beautifully," Hohberg continues. "And I think one of the things she's going to be greatest at now is giving advice, starting with young people in the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth grades — people who are tempted by [others] around them. 
 
 "She can talk to anybody about anything and say, 'I've been there and done that and you can [overcome this], too'" Hohberg says. "She could save so many young people today." 
 
 Bynes already has thoughts and words of advice for people who might see themselves in some of her experiences. "My advice to anyone who is struggling with substance abuse would be to be really careful because drugs can really take a hold of your life," she says "Everybody is different, obviously, but for me, the mixture of marijuana and whatever other drugs and sometimes drinking really messed up my brain. It really made me a completely different person. I actually am a nice person. I would never feel, say or do any of the things that I did and said to the people I hurt on Twitter." 
 
 She continues, "There are gateway drugs and thankfully I never did heroin or meth or anything like that but certain things that you think are harmless, they may actually affect you in a more harmful way. Be really, really careful because you could lose it all and ruin your entire life like I did." 
 
 Jacket: Sandro, Shirt: Frame, Jeans: Levi's 
 
 Four years in, Bynes says, "Those days of experimenting [with substances] are long over. I'm not sad about it and I don't miss it because I really feel ashamed of how those substances made me act. When I was off of them, I was completely back to normal and immediately realized what I had done — it was like an alien had literally invaded my body. That is such a strange feeling." --- 
 
 After a harrowing couple of years, Bynes, bolstered by her family and support system, found a new pursuit to fill the hole that acting had left: fashion. (She'd already gotten a taste of the fashion industry after having collaborated on a line, 'dear,' with collegiate apparel brand Steve and Barry's back in 2007.) In 2014 she enrolled in FIDM, after first hearing about it, she says, watching The Hills and seeing the reality show's star, Lauren Conrad, attending classes there. 
 
 "Instructors love her. Love her," says Kathi Gilbert, the assistant dean of admissions and one of Bynes' advisors. Professors have said they "wished all of their students could be like her," she adds. "She's smart, she participates in class — she's an amazing student." 
 
 "I know my behavior was strange so people were trying to grasp at straws." 
 
 She's made some close friends at school although she admits that because of everything she's gone through, she's "more guarded than I ever was" because she still encounters people with preconceived notions about who she is or what happened to her. 
 
 Whether coming from an acquaintance or the media, these kinds of assumptions grate on Bynes. While over the last few years the Internet and social media have become much more empathetic to stars navigating substance abuse issues or mental health challenges, the Internet of even five years ago was a lot snarkier and a lot more speculative. "It definitely isn't fun when people diagnose you with what they think you are," Bynes says, in reference to countless headlines over the years that attempted to put a psychological label to her behavior. "That was always really bothersome to me. If you deny anything and tell them what it actually is, they don't believe you. Truly, for me, [my behavior] was drug-induced, and whenever I got off of [drugs], I was always back to normal." 
 
 "I know that my behavior was so strange that people were just trying to grasp at straws for what was wrong," Bynes concedes with clear-eyed analysis and remarkable consideration for these wannabe "armchair psychiatrists." 
 
 Turtleneck: Eckhaus Latta, Top: Amanda Bynes, Pants: Ganni 
 
 Maybe above all, it's this trait — consideration — and its related cousin, empathy, that Bynes rues having once lost but, now more than ever, it's clear that she's found. Throughout the course of the photo shoot, to which she arrives early, Bynes checks in with various members of the production team frequently, looking to ensure everyone is getting exactly what they need out of the endeavor. She gamely sticks around past midnight to add another shot after the crew decides it would be a good idea to have one more look added into the mix. She compliments someone's red pants and delights in an adorable photo of her friend's two-year-old daughter. 
 
 --- 
 
 Sometimes society confuses agreeableness or niceness with blandness or, even worse, weakness — especially when it's a trait exhibited by a young woman — but make no mistake: Bynes is neither bland nor weak. She's a woman who still possesses that same expressive sense of humor that first won over producers for All That as well as a type of thoughtfulness and self-awareness that comes with age — and gets amplified when you've had to navigate some dark waters. 
 
 "I have no fear of the future. I've been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it so I just feel like it's only up from here." 
 
 When talking about her plans to return to acting, Bynes says she wants to re-enter the business "kind of the same way I did as a kid, which is with excitement and hope for the best." She says she wants to have the chance to "try it all" and "doesn't want to limit myself" by only gunning for certain types of roles or productions. 
 
 As a SoCal kid, Bynes says her favorite brand growing up was the skatewear line No Fear, and she describes being drawn back then to the notions of bravery and fearlessness. "I think that's kind of how I go about [life] now — like, what's there to lose? I have no fear of the future. I've been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it so I just feel like it's only up from here." ||||| Before she moved to New York in September, Tali Lennox was your classic child-of-a-British-musician semi-celebrity. The 20-year-old, who bears a striking resemblance to her mother, Annie Lennox, appeared on the February cover of Tatler in a green and white checkered Louis Vuitton dress seated atop a motorcycle. In September, the Daily Mail singled her out as a “style icon” in England alongside Harry Styles, after they both attended a Burberry Prorsum show during London Fashion Week. Other British magazines, like Elle and Vogue, were interested in making her into something, but she moved to New York before the momentum had fully taken hold. Here, she pops up on Billy Farrell and Patrick McMullan, but “If I stayed in London,” she says, “I probably would have gotten more work. I’ve never wanted to be thought of as an ‘It' girl, someone who rides on the coattails of my mother.” 
 
 Instead, the daughter of Eurythmics lead singer and film producer Uri Fruchtmann joined in on a grand downtown tradition: British gals-about-town who’ve decamped here from London to pursue some combination of modeling (Alexa Chung), art (Poppy de Villeneuve), television presenting (Peaches Geldof), acting (Daisey Lowe), or some combination therein. As she bounces around between these disciplines, figuring out her purpose, Lennox insists that she pays for everything herself, without any support from her family. 
 
 Over dinner at Westville, she's clad in leather overalls and a pink fur bomber and is going a mile a minute explaining her early career trajectory, as she douses her market veggie plate with heaps of spicy mustard. At 17, she dropped out of high school to pursue modeling full time. “My mom was like, ‘go, do it, have an adventure,’ and my dad told me I could leave school only if I went to therapy.” Her only reservation at the time, she says, “was that I’ve never looked in the mirror and thought I was that amazing-looking,” she says. That didn’t stop her from doing a topless photo for Love, Katie Grand’s late-aughts style bible, which was her first brush with some level of fame: “A girl at school apparently sent it around to all the boys going ‘Oh my god! I can't believe she's done this!,’” Lennox didn’t get the drama. “It’s so unsexy — I look like a boy with boobs.” 
 
 Despite these early insecurities, her first season at it (spring 2011), she walked in the Acne, Christopher Kane, Prada, and Miu Miu shows, and went on to appear in campaigns for Topshop and Burberry. But instead of chugging full steam ahead, she sat subsequent seasons of fashion week out to figure out which non-modeling-related activities might pique her interest (while she stayed on the boards at Next Model Management). This season, she's been spending quite a bit of time in her East Village one-bedroom making art. “I like to do really realistic paintings, which requires so much focus; like if I have to go to the bathroom or change a song, I can’t, I’m so in it.” One of her pieces was just bought by Lorraine Kirke, mother of Girls actress Jemima, who owns the clothing boutique Geminola. 
 
 Lennox also took a few acting classes earlier this winter at the Susan Batson studio, though she is doubtful that this is her calling. “We had to do an exercise and were told to think of a time when we suffered, and all these people were sobbing, and I was like, ‘I’ve gotten over all those experiences.’” She'd also like to learn how to use a video camera and plans to give documentary filmmaking a shot (“I love talking to people, hearing people's stories; I love honest things.”) She thinks that having a talk show would be fun (“like a less commercial Conversation With Amanda de Cadanet"). She may also start a blog. Though don't expect things to get too personal. She recently started writing an online diary for a fashion magazine, "but was later like, 'I cannot publish any of this'; I was way too honest. Maybe I'll write a memoir when I'm 60, but right now, it's not a good idea.” That’s because Lennox is refreshingly unguarded for someone working in fashion; she did some oversharing during our interview about past boyfriends and current crushes, which led to several pleading e-mails begging me not to print any names. 
 
 “I'm throwing spaghetti all over the wall to see what sticks,” she explains. 
 
 At the same time, without doing much to attract it, she's starting to get the kind of attention she ostensibly came here to avoid. Recently, a society figure — whom she says she met only once before — came up to her at a Fashion Week dinner: “So. When are we getting lunch,” the person said, not really asking, then walked away. During this fashion season, Ferragamo flew her to Milan and H&M sent her to London, not to walk in, but to attend and be seen at their fashion shows. 
 
 Still, Lennox isn’t yet sold on the front-row life. “There are times when I love the world and love everyone, and I want to talk to everyone, and other times when I feel really disillusioned, and like none of this is real, nothing is real around me.” A close family friend, whom she says “spiritually advises” her, recently gave Lennox a crystal that she says is able to ground her when she starts feeling out of control. “It’s my one possession that nobody is allowed to touch. Honestly, it’s like my comfort blanket. I sleep with it every night. It’s my teddy bear.” She also talks to it: “If I don’t hold it, I can’t go to sleep. In the night I’ll sometimes drop it on the floor by accident, and in the morning I’ll be like ‘I’m so sorry crystal!’” 
 
 Behind the leather overalls, Lennox has a strong hippie vibe about her, which both explains her career-dabbling and can be explained, in part, by her free-spirited parents; her dad lives a bohemian artist life in Ibiza, and the two of them have attended Burning Man together for the past two years. She’s actually about to head to Ibiza in order to do Ayahuasca with him, a potent psychedelic tea that’s used in South America. “I’m the only one in my family who hasn’t done it yet,” she says. “Who knows? I may come back a different person.” ||||| You could say he’s had a lucky year. The lanky six-foot-two-inch 17-year-old all-American with piercing blue eyes has taken the fashion industry by storm. This season, Lucky Blue Smith is the face of Tom Ford, Moncler, and Calvin Klein Jeans, and has walked the runways of designers Michael Kors, Versace, and Fendi. He’s also become an Insta-stud. His social-media presence has branded him a male equivalent of Cara Delevingne, the British “It girl” whose quirky online persona (more than 20 million Instagram followers) catapulted her into fashion’s stratosphere and then into big Hollywood movies. 
 
 The exact moment Smith’s career turned from model to Insta-star was during the men’s-wear shows last January in Milan. He first joined Instagram to keep up with friends from home in Utah, but by show season he had amassed 150,000 followers. Most were fans of his modeling pictures, and they were eager to meet him. He posted a message that he’d be outside Via Solari, 35, Fendi’s show venue in Milan, at a certain time. Sixty girls arrived demanding selfies. He pulled the stunt three more times. Again, more girls, more selfies. His followers were multiplying. By the time fashion week had migrated to Paris, Smith’s modus operandi was tried and true. The “Insta-meets” had become frenzies of hormonal teenagers wielding camera phones. “In Paris, a girl was having a panic attack, so I sat her down, gave her a hug, and took a pic with her. I looked back and she had passed out!” To date, he has more than 1.4 million followers. 
 
 Smith is the youngest of four children, the only boy after sisters Starlie Cheyenne, 22, Daisy Clementine, 20, and Pyper America, 18. (Their mother, Sheridan, a former model, and their father, Dallon, a hobbyist musician who started a guitar-string company, gave them memorable first names to offset their familiar surname.) Together, they’re the Atomics, a family band with Lucky Blue on drums. They live in L.A. now, but they grew up in a tight-knit community in Spanish Fork, Utah, where a model scout first approached Daisy, in 2008. “I was 10 at the time,” Lucky Blue remembers, “and they said, ‘In a couple of years, we’ll come back for you.’ ” They weren’t kidding. He signed at 12, and by the time he reached 15, the Smiths had moved to California, Lucky Blue had been shot by Hedi Slimane for Japanese Vogue, and all four siblings had become the face of Gap’s 2012 holiday campaign. 
 
 As Smith’s fan base continues to climb, he offers two tips for those who haven’t amassed as many followers. The most important thing to remember when taking a selfie: “Good lighting. Definitely.” And find a four-legged friend. “Put a puppy in your picture and it will make it 20 times better.”
– Tavi Gevinson became a fixture in the fashion world at age 11, thanks to her blog Style Rookie. Today, she's 17 and running Rookie, an online magazine delving into everything from pop culture to feminist issues to love to body image to celebrity interviews. Tavi and Rookie have come a long way since the magazine launched in 2011. Tavi now oversees an 80-person staff; the magazine's 43-year-old editorial director quit her job at the New York Times to come work for the teen. "My rule for bosses and therapists is they have to be smarter than I am—and Tavi completely fits that bill," Anaheed Alani tells the Los Angeles Times. Tavi also does book signings (Rookie puts out a print anthology of its best work, plus new content, each year), speaking engagements, and photo shoots; she's been interviewed by Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon; she even had a role in the film Enough Said. But she's also a senior at a public high school in suburban Illinois who has to get by on a $25-a-week allowance. (She's not yet drawing a salary from Rookie, though it gets more than 4 million page views a month and features jewelry and makeup ads; her dad says she may start getting paid soon.) Of the magazine, she says, "The goal has become more to make people feel included, that they're cool enough or smart enough." The Times' full profile is worth a read.