Last month, Willow Smith was named an “ambassador” for Chanel. She also covered W Magazine’s issue devoted to the youngsters. And I realized, with those stories, that I have no hate for Willow. She is, at worst, rather daffy and harmless. At best, she’s a stylish and interesting young woman who is challenging fashion norms. Plus, while I roll my eyes throughout her interviews, it’s good to remember that she’s JUST 15 years old. I feel like we can give her a break and say that she’s still learning and figuring things out, and maybe people shouldn’t take a 15-year-old so seriously? Anyway, Willow covers the new issue of Teen Vogue and she’s, like, into hosting “underground teachings in quantum mechanics” and stuff.

Her relationship with her brother Jaden: “We’re like binary stars, like two parts of one thing. I know what he’s thinking at all times. And he knows what I’m thinking. We’re not identical twins, but it feels like that in a lot of ways.”

This really part of the interview: “The teen supernova perks up on topics like nanoscience, civil engineering, and microbiology. She is a self-proclaimed STEM freak, with her sights set squarely on deepening connections in the science community and maybe even attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) one day… Willow sews clothing, hosts underground teachings in quantum mechanics, and is studying how to produce songs from mathematical equations…”

She visited MIT: “It was nice to be able to talk to female students and professors about science and logic because that’s just such a man’s world.”

She is an artisan: “I see myself as a—hold on, let me ask Siri.” The teenager whips out her iPhone and speaks into it, drawing stares from tables nearby. “Siri, define artisan.” Everybody’s favorite robotic voice serves up a satisfying definition: Artisan is a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand. “Ah, OK, yes!” Willow allows. “I call myself an artisan.”

When she felt less than empowered: “After ‘Whip My Hair’ and all the publicity, after going on tour in the U.K., after saying no to the Annie film, all of this crap was going on in my life, and I had to sit down and say, ‘Who are you? On a real note. Are you this or this?’ During that time of figuring it out, I was lost and super insecure. But then I stopped trying to find myself in these other inanimate objects, people, and ideas. I realized it isn’t about finding yourself—it’s about creating yourself.”

You can change your style without changing yourself: “I have some cool shoes on and I wear crazy eyeliner, but it’s really all about emulating the colors you feel inside. A lot of clothes are cute, but after you buy the Yeezy shoes, after you get your hair done with a weave, you’re still the same person. I feel like more and more kids are starting to realize this.”

Her new role as a Chanel ambassador: “Being a young African-American woman with dreads, it blows my mind that I’m a Chanel ambassador. Like, how am I a Chanel ambassador? It is so beautiful. I’m coming into a new part of my life that is completely unknown, and I’m jumping right in. All I can do from here is continue to shift paradigms and continue to push the envelope further and further. But I am doing it every day just by being myself.”

[From Teen Vogue]

“We’re like binary stars, like two parts of one thing.” I had to look that up, so I now I learned something new – binary stars are really a thing and yes, that metaphor makes total sense in explaining her relationship to Jaden. As for “I know what he’s thinking at all times. And he knows what I’m thinking” – it’s cute that they think that. And yes, she’s an artisan… who wears Yeezys and is herself and cares about STEM and wants to go to MIT and host underground teachings in quantum mechanics. She is everything. She is 15.

Photos courtesy of Teen Vogue.