On Gossip Girl, Taylor Momsen spends her days sidling up to the feline in-crowd. Off-camera, though, the youngest model ever signed to IMG couldn’t care less about playing it cool. "I love high fashion,” gushes Taylor Momsen, the 15-year-old star of Gossip Girl. And it’s a good thing she does, since Momsen was recently signed as IMG Models’ freshest new face. “It’s been such a big part of my life, models and fashion, so it’s really exciting to enter that world. It’s a whole different ballgame.”

The self-possessed ingénue, who starred in Gus Van Sant’s 2007 indie Paranoid Park, explains that Jenny Humphrey, her Becky Sharp-inspired television character, will be entering a new world herself. “She’s stopped striving to be someone else and is accepting who she is,” says Momsen. “She’s learning to use her talent, and realizing that can be just as powerful as money.”