Tag, You’re It!
In the heat of Tag Heuer’s boutique opening in Ginza, Amy Yasmine meets Bella Hadid, the Swiss watchmaker’s ambassadress, to discuss her model life, keeping grounded, and “never cracking under pressure”.
It’s not every day one comes face to face with one of the world’s most hardworking models, let alone one of the most photographed. Just a casual walk down any busy high street, and Bella Hadid’s steely gaze is plastered on most billboards and shop windows, from glamorous boutiques to gravity-defying skyscrapers. At the newsstands, she graces almost every magazine cover, while her private life is hot debate on the Internet.
So imagine my surprise when this generation’s sweetheart leapt to her feet to greet me with a warm, embracing hug, in Tag Heuer’s latest Ginza flagship that had recently been technofused to the nines. “Hi, I’m Bella!” she chirped, with that insouciant Californian spirit peeking through—a cheerful contrast from her feisty persona for the Swiss watchmaker’s campaign covering the boutique’s three-floor exterior. Hadid has been brand ambassador of Tag Heuer since last year, and had flown over 5,000 miles to celebrate the label’s new concept boutique opening in Ginza. “I’m so happy to be here,” she shared, showing zero signs of jet lag at all. “Over the past three days I’ve been running around, and really experiencing Tokyo has made me love the city even more!” Evidently so, as just a few days before the event, images of the ambassadress surfaced on my Instagram explore feed—from her visiting Shinjuku’s heady Golden Gai district to playing arcade games in complete virtual reality. Scroll through her Instagallery just a little bit more and you’ll also discover her posing in glammed-up trackies in Hangzhou, and before that, Beijing. “I’m actually a really good traveller!” Bella explained, noticing the look of sheer disbelief on my face as we traced her timeline here in Asia. “I travel and work every day, though it’s intense for my body to take.”