How does a regular teen from Santa Monica go from the hallways of high school to the front rows of New York Fashion Week? It started with a concert.
At the tender age of 14, a doe eyed, spindly-legged Kennedy met LA nightlife photographer Mark Hunter, then 20, at a Blood Brothers concert.
Attracted to her unique looks and disheveled charm, Hunter photographed Kennedy for his popular Internet site, thecobrasnake.com, and recruited her as his intern. The two developed a romantic relationship and Hunter's personal Lolita soon became the star attraction of his website, and an unlikely veteran of young HollywoodÕs party circuit.
Hunter's first set of Kennedy photos titled "JFK CORY KENNEDY," purposely alluded to a potential connection with the political family, thus heightening her allure. A sudden increase in site traffic emerged whenever Hunter featured Kennedy, and public interest in this young, fresh-faced scenester began to grow. "I'd start seeing all this traffic from fashion community sites," says Hunter.
Serving as an Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick for the hipster generation, Hunter was creating a superstar. "I'm not a superstar. But if I can create a superstar," he says, "it'll be good for my career, for her career, for all of us."
Like wildfire, Kennedy's popularity spread through message boards and forums of the Internet. Some praise Kennedy for her innovative, fresh style and 'don't mess with me' attitude. "I love her style. She outshines all the other scenesters," says one The Fashion Spot blogger.
Others remain unimpressed. Gawker.com describes her as "a malnourished teenager who dresses like she raided her retarded grandma's basement and does nothing with her wasted life but pose for pictures on a Web site and hang out and live off her parents while waiting to get famous for some as-yet-unrevealed talent."
Kennedy's newly moved blog (from blogspot.com to uber.com) is filled with juicy name-dropping: "We went with Sean Lennon to this party." "Vincent Gallo tried to hook up with me." "It felt good to be looking at the back of Anna Wintour[']s bob." Despite Kennedy's detractors, the blog has already obtained more than 500 subscriptions in merely a month. Kennedy's MySpace profile boasts an impressive 12719 friends.
Love or loathe her, Kennedy's presence as the Internet's "It" girl cannot be denied. Even those who are perplexed by her appeal acknowledge her presence in the fashion sphere.
Those who do get 'it' put her on the cover of magazines. Not only was Kennedy Nylon's October 2007 cover girl, she also has her own fashion advice column, "Cory's Corner."
Kennedy has also walked the runways of New York Fashion Week for designer Jeremy Scott, gracing the cover of the New York Times in a Scott original.
"I would say that Cory Kennedy is the Jeremy Scott girl. She's definitely one of my muses. She keeps me on my toes," says Scott.
Yes, she's a party girl. Yes, she's underage, and yes, shagging a photographer is what propelled her into the public eye. But Cory Kennedy doesn't really care what you think; she's on the cover of Nylon.