Karlie Kloss Says Cindy Crawford Is Her Style Crush: “She Taught Kaia Well”

"I think Cindy Crawford is one of the chicest women," Karlie Kloss told InStyle at last week's Bumble Bizz launch party. Celebrating the app's new professional networking tool, the Kode for Klossy founder named Crawford as one of her mentors—in both business and fashion. "She’s so smart, and she’s got incredible taste. She taught Kaia well. Kaia also has really good style. And Jourdan Dunn. She’s one of my best friends, and I just think she’s like hysterical and she has really good taste."

Kloss, who co-hosted the event with Kate Hudson, Priyanka Chopra, and Bumble creator Whitney Wolfe Herd, also revealed what's to come on her much-buzzed about talk show, Movie Night With Karlie Kloss, premiering on Freeform on Dec. 28. “Playing games where you just make fools of yourself is a good way to unwind,” she said of the variety-meets-talk show.

The series will feature Kloss and famous friends talking about movies, cooking, and playing games—and it may be the most well-cast show on your winter lineup. “Kaia [Gerber] is going to be there. Kendall [Jenner], Ashley Graham, Lilly Singh, Jourdan Dunn, Joan Smalls, Martha Hunt,” Kloss listed. “Who else is joining us? Ruby Rose, a lot of interesting other people. Amber Valletta. And then some experts on different things.” One pal you won’t be seeing on the show, however, is Taylor Swift, who allegedly declined to join the squad on set.

Another intriguing visitor: a snake. “There’s an episode [where] there’s a giant live snake!” the Kode With Klossy founder said. As for the activities she and her friends will be engaging in on the show, “they’re going to sound so ridiculous, I’m not even sure how to describe some of them.”

Scroll down for more from our conversation with Kloss—including what her date nights look like and what she steals from BFF Jourdan Dunn’s closet.

Who would your dream mentor be?
Oprah. 100%. Oprah is just the queen of the world.

Who are some of your actual mentors?
Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, and Naomi [Campbell]. I mean, women who I really admire, for a myriad of reasons. They have been exactly in my shoes as a model but also think about all the other ways to use their voice and platform to do the things that they are passionate about.

You named Jourdan Dunn as one of your style crushed. Do you ever borrow from each other's closets?
Oh, yeah. And also we have the same size feet, which comes in really handy.

That’s very important in friendships.
Very important. All my sisters, it’s so funny because we all share each others stuff, and when I was younger, my older sister had shoes that were too big for my feet, and I would steal her shoes and stuff the toes with Kleenex. And I would put them back in her closet, and if I forgot the Kleenex, she would catch me, and I’d get in trouble.

On dating apps, it’s all about the pickup line. What’s the professional pickup line that would get your attention?
"When you first learn to code, you build a lesson around [the phrase] 'Hello World.' I feel like some nerdy code pun or pickup line would catch my attention."

Have you ever used a dating app for actual dating purposes?
You know what? I haven’t. I was thinking about it when I was signing up for Bumble Bizz, like: “I have never downloaded a dating app before.” But it works. My sister met her longtime boyfriend online.

What’s your favorite date night activity?
I really love doing something active, so like a bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge to get pizza in Brooklyn or cooking together. It’s nice to sit at a fancy restaurant—actually we’re at one of my favorite fancy restaurants [right now], The Grill. Mario Carbone is a super talented chef, so I love anything that he does. So date night at one of his restaurants or some activity. Something fun or physical or a picnic. I just like adventure, I guess.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
The first one that comes to mind is my third grade teacher, Mrs. Sonderman. She told me, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Today I was thinking about her.

A true variety show! What’s the format?
Yeah! It’s really fun. So we’ve watched the movies, and we’re talking about the movies and talking about a bunch of other stuff too. It’s just a really fun way to bring people together, and who doesn’t love a movie night? All of my friends travel all the time, you know it’s hard to be in the same place at the same time, so whether it is a movie night in a hotel room during Paris Fashion Week or a night out dancing somewhere or a night in somebody’s apartment, I love just being with my friends. And games in general are so fun because there’s nothing better than laughing with the people you love.

Do you have a makeup obsession right now?
Speaking of entrepreneurs, I love Emily Weiss, what she’s built with Glossier. A good example of a great entrepreneur that is super passionate and is thinking about the world in a modern way. She’s using technology to transform industries that have been pretty stuck in their ways for a long time.

As a serial entrepreneur, is there a dream business, unrelated to what you do now, that you one day want to build?
Oh, yeah! I have a long list. Right now I have my plate full, but I have big ambitions for what I want to continue to build in my modeling career, in my work with Kode with Klossy, and in all of the projects that I’m involved in. But I have always known that I plan to, at the right time, with the right idea, build a business, be it a consumer goods business, a technology business, I have no shortage of ideas. It’s a matter of finding the right one, the right timing, and the right team.