Welcome to the Gigi and Bella show
The Hadid sisters have made a stealth move on the fashion industry, to become the new supers. Victoria Moss meets them
Between them they have more than 41 million followers on Instagram; and in the past 18 months the Los Angeles-born sisters Gigi, 21, and Bella, 20, have wielded this social media superpower to sharp effect. Born to Dutch model Yolanda and Palestinian-American property developer Mohamed Anwar Hadid, and brought up in affluence in Malibu, the pair aren’t exactly a rags-to-riches story, but they are proof of what good genes and millennial marketing can achieve.
This fashion show season has cemented them as the leading charges of the new supermodel pack: powerful in their own right, with the catnip appeal of being able to bring their own personal brands to that of the clothes they promote. They’re akin to the Nineties supers – known by their first names alone, and at the top of everyone’s casting list.
Backstage at one recent show, a rather persistent journalist was demanding time with Gigi. When offered an alternative spokesmodel, he simply quipped: “She’s so last year; it’s all about Gigi.”
Indeed so. This month she is simultaneously on the March covers of American, British and Chinese Vogue. Mattel have made her into a Barbie doll, plus she’s now not only walking in shows, but a headlining hashtag.
She kicked off this month of fashion shows by unveiling her second collection with Tommy Hilfiger – and not only that, she had the entire industry fly to LA to see it. The collection itself riffs off her personality. Working with the design team, Hadid enthuses that “with each piece I tried to capture a different part of my style. One day I wake up feeling like a tomboy, another day a girly-girl, or more sporty or preppy. I tried to do a piece for each one of my moods.” The Tommy X Gigi collection is indicative of how these girls have made their mark – by collaborating with brands on collections, rather than just modelling. For the past two seasons, Hilfiger shared the limelight with Hadid, launching a collection for sale as soon as she’d taken her feet off the runway. It’s worked. Within 24 hours of the show, 15 “looks” had sold out on Tommy.com.
Hadid is also fitting in a sort of Tommy-tour around fashion weeks, making in-store appearances to meet her eager fans (mostly teenage girls, who go under the hashtag GiForce on social media) for selfies and shopping.
I meet her in London, where she’s flown in on a private jet from Amsterdam and, before that, Milan. At each store visit, 2,000 screaming girls have turned up. At the Milan event, one had flown from Sicily to meet her.
We talk as she is primped and primed for the Brompton Road store event, where girls have been queuing since 7am. Once they make it into the shop they can get manicures, take pictures in the “Gigi” instant photo booth, and customise pieces from the collection with “Gigi” patches, while they wait it out for a snatched picture with the woman herself.
In the flesh, Hadid is pure honey-hued, her skin a perfect Californian caramel, her hair golden – currently being manoeuvred into a ponytail – her eyes a smoky blue-green. She is lithe, and slimmer than when I last met her in 2014, when she starred in Stephen Meisel’s provocative Latexthemed Pirelli calendar. But she is no less charming, in an All-USA, wholesome milkand-cookies way – which makes her the perfect pairing for Hilfiger’s own brand of classic Americana.
After a precocious start modelling for Guess jeans at the age of two, she reignited her career in earnest after high school, making her NY fashion week debut in 2014. In early bookings, Hadid’s success was met with scepticism. Her rise, at the same time as Kendall Jenner, her friend and fellow social media and reality TV star (Gigi’s mother starred in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, in which she also appeared), attracted flak from some who insisted she was not a “real model”. Admirably, Hadid has always stuck up for herself, and batted back comments from online weirdos who insisted on telling her she had the wrong figure (ie, some actual shape) for a catwalk model.
She is sanguine about this. “I try to be as open and honest as I can, and am learning when to stand up for something, and when to let it go. If you let everything get to you and feel like you always have to answer then I think that gives people space to think it’s their place to be negative and that they deserve some sort of response.”
Her work ethic is centred on “being a pleasant person in general, then more opportunities come to you. Half the stuff I’ve done in the last few years I never would’ve dreamed of.”
Does she feel pressured about entertaining her 30 million followers? “I’ve never felt stressed by it. I always want it to feel natural. It always comes back to what feels right for my brand.” This largely translates into fashion week appearances, magazine features and the odd artfully loved-up image of her and her boyfriend, ex-One Direction singer Zayn Malik (the mention of whom prompts an instant shut down by the gaggle of PRs and managers watching our conversation).
Of sister Bella she says: “It’s amazing to have family in such close proximity in this industry. I can look across the room through all the craziness and have that sense of home, but I also realise that it’s not normal. I feel very lucky. I’m very protective, but I try to play it cool. I try not to be on top of her because I know that I learnt a lot of the best things in the first couple of years on my own.”
The younger Hadid has clearly been taking notes. I meet her a week later in Milan where, as well as walking in the Fendi, Versace, Moschino and Alberta Ferretti shows, she’s just been unveiled as the face of Bulgari accessories. She has the same high cheekbones as her sister, but more of a feline sinuosity. Her dark hair, straightened and tied back, with a centre parting, gives her a sterner, but still striking look. The consummate ambassador, she tells me that she is “honoured” to work with the house, adding that “my mother always wore Bulgari, so it was a perfect match”.
Her move into modelling came after a burgeoning equestrian career was cut short by her contraction of Lyme disease, which stopped her being able to compete. “It was really emotional for me. I thought I was going to ride horses for the rest of my life. But everything happens for a reason, that’s my motto now, and I’m so happy to be where I am. Hopefully in a couple of years I can start riding again and buy a big barn upstate and me and my mum [who also has Lyme disease] can go riding whenever we want.”
In order to keep her condition under control she gives herself “a lot of shots every day, and vitamins, biotics, stuff like that, but it takes its toll.” During fashion week, she says that she’s “exhausted, but at the end of every day I look back and I’m proud of what I’ve done”.
Both sisters are now based in New York. Bella moved there when she was 17 to study photography at Parsons School of Design, but she abandoned her studies once modelling took off. Of Gigi she says: “We’ve been best friends since we were kids. We fought, obviously, when we were teenagers but by the time we were 16 we realised that we have each other and that it can get lonely out there. Now, if we’re having a hard time at work, we can just walk to the other side of hair and make-up and see one another.”
What’s it like walking down the catwalk of these high-profile shows? “It’s actually an amazing feeling. But it’s funny. We sit backstage for six hours, then it’s a five-minute show and you’re on the runway for 30 seconds. It’s a lot of adrenalin, you walk out, give it your best shot, try to make the clothes look as good as possible and not to fall off the side.”
The sisters’ eager fans are a now constant presence surrounding the shows, as are paparazzi desperate for a lucrative shot of the pair together. “I used to get anxiety, freak out and start sweating” says Bella, “but now I can walk outside and be a little calm. We get really emotional because we want to be able to meet everyone, but we also have to go to work…”
Equally, even with her own 10 million followers to keep interested, she keeps it in perspective. “Once a month I go for a few days and detox [from Instagram]. You look up and see the world around you, instead of just staring at your phone all day.”
‘It’s amazing to have family in such close proximity in this industry’