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"The scene at the Chanel atelier the evening before the spring haute couture show can only be described as decadent and perfect chaos. Models huddle on a bench outside the design studio, under a C.O. Paeffgen portrait of Coco Chanel. From the neck up, they are in full hair and makeup, but instead of the couture finery meant to accompany it, all are dressed in street clothes, which for every last one is some form of denim. One reads a Jack Kerouac novel; others sip Coca Light and chat quietly. The veteran model Stella Tennant wafts through the hallway with the familiar air of someone who has been doing this for two decades. Doors open and slam shut as seamstresses enter and exit, two or three holding a single gown with the delicate care one assumes with a small baby. The four-year-old son of male model Brad Kroenig runs through the hallways, laughing, screaming, and slamming more doors\u2014the sole person, it should be noted, not standing on ceremony. (When Karl Lagerfeld is your godfather, such things are forgiven.) Alas, another door opens and a voice beckons: \"Ondria!\"\n\n Though just shy of sixteen years old at the time of Paris couture, American model Ondria Hardin is no novice. She was discovered in a school-related pageant in Raleigh, North Carolina, at just ten years of age. (She won Miss Photogenic.) Several years later, she stood five-foot-eight, and she and her mother had packed up and left the rural one-stoplight town they called home for far away Tokyo. For both, it was their first time out of the country. They remained in Asia for five months, until the influential casting director Ashley Brokaw happened upon a video of Ondria and booked her in a Prada show. She now has an apartment in Manhattan, counts Marc Jacobs and Valentino as clients, and stars in the spring Chanel campaign. Though she has walked her fair share of catwalks, tomorrow's Chanel show will mark her couture debut. Understandably, she is simultaneously excited and nervous. \"Karl was not at all what I expected,\" she says of her first time meeting the legendary designer. \"You think of Karl Lagerfeld and you think snooty. But he's just talking to you, like 'Hey, what's up?' which actually kind of shocked me. He's pretty down-to-earth.\"\n\nStory edited for TeenVogue.com. See photos from Ondria's photo shoot, then pick up the complete interview with Ondria Hardin in the May issue of Teen Vogue, on newsstands April 16."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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