NEW YORK: Her elder half-sister Kim Kardashian may have tried to “break the Internet” with a provocative photo shoot last week, but Kendall Jenner is taking a more conventional route to fame and fortune.

The slender 19-year-old model has until recently lived largely in the shadow of her more famous, curvaceous sibling, despite featuring regularly in the hit US reality television show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

Yet by harnessing her natural beauty to the phenomenal power of social media — where her followers are counted in the tens of millions — Jenner is firmly on course to outstrip even her sister for stardom, rapidly emerging as the most prominent of a new generation of supermodels.

Jenner’s meteoric modeling rise was crowned this week by confirmation that she is to become the new face of beauty giant Estee Lauder, a golden ticket guaranteed to elevate her burgeoning profile to another stratosphere.

By choosing Jenner, Estee Lauder has made no secret of its desire to boost sales and growth by targeting younger consumers.

“(Kendall) is the ultimate ‘instagirl,’ and we are excited to leverage her image, voice, energy and extraordinary social media power to introduce Estee Lauder to millions of young women around the world,” the cosmetics giant’s global brand president Jane Hertzmark Hudis explained in a statement.

Her rise has also attracted its fair share of backbiting. Several tabloid reports and blogs have suggested that some of her sisters are jealous of her success.

Jenner meanwhile has dismissed suggestions that she owes her fame to the family brand created so successfully by her publicity-hungry half-sister.

“In reality I worked pretty hard for this, running around doing tests,” she told ABC television. “It wasn’t like I just got it magically and it has just happened.”

She has also reached an understanding with her sister Kim Kardashian, married to hip-hop star Kanye West, that she not attend her runway appearances.

“Banned is a strong word, it is more of a mutual understanding,” she said.