Taxonomy

From Banksable: How Tyra Banks turned herself fiercely into a brand. By Lyn Hirschberg. New York Times Magazine. 1 June 2008. Pp. 38-45, 58, 62-63.

Tyra Banks has 275 smiles. Like a star athlete who has perfected a jump shot or a curveball, Banks has studied, honed and mastered the smile. In her arsenal are the "surprise smile," the "angry but still smiling" smile, the "flirting with boyfriend" smile and the "commercial" smile, which, like the rest of Tyra's smiles, was designed and perfected when Banks, who is now 34, began modeling at 15. From the start of her career, when she was virtually plucked from an all-girl Catholic high school in Los Angeles and whisked off to Paris, her days as a mass-market, first-name-only supermodel strutting the catwalk in her underwear for Victoria's Secret, Banks has always treated modeling as a kind of beautiful science. The Smiles