Meet the model every one wants this Fashion Week,
Bella Ha did is following in her model sister’s foot steps and winning over the cat walk—and the Weeknd’s heart
Backin August, Bella Hadid received an e-mail from her agent at IMG Models. She had landed a Victoria’s Secret Pink campaign — a prestigious steppingstone to model heaven, also known as earning your Angel wings.
But while everyone from her representatives to her mother celebrated, there were only crickets from Bella herself.
“My mom was like, ‘Do you know you got Pink? Because you never responded,’ ” she recalls. “I was still trying to process it. I don’t want to jinx anything ... I still get nervous.”
It’s an unexpected and endearing reaction from an 18-year-old born into great wealth and brought up among the Malibu, Calif., elite.
Not only is Bella one of the models of the moment, she’s also the daughter of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Yolanda Foster and wealthy developer Mohamed Hadid. Her stepfather is music producer David Foster, and her older sister, Gigi, is one of the hottest models around.
But if Gigi is the sunny blonde homecoming queen, Bella is the mysterious brunette enigma. With raven hair, piercing blue-green eyes and the ability to rock vintage Levi’s like a ’90s supermodel, the 5-foot-10-inch beauty has just begun her seduction of the fashion industry.
Bella is currently on the cover of the Editorialist magazine, her Instagram account stands at a robust 1.2 million followers and she’s reportedly dating hot musician The Weeknd. She’s walked in shows for Tom Ford and Desigual and, since signing with IMG last year, appeared in a Balmain campaign with her sister. She’s also gearing up for her first ever New York Fashion Week, followed by the European shows. “I’m excited. I don’t know if I can say
what I am walking in, yet, but just to be able to go to Paris and London ...” she pauses, afraid, once again, of jinxing herself. “Well, my fingers are crossed.”
Perhaps her insecurity comes from the fact that Bella never thought she’d be a model. The statuesque stunner was a competitive equestrian who was home-schooled for the last three years of high school so she could train full time.
“I never knew [modeling] was something I wanted to do. I started riding at an early age and my sister was modeling for years before I was. I thought that was going to be her thing,” she says.
But Bella recently cemented her arrival in the fashion industry by posing with Gigi for a very sexy cover of V Magazine, shot by famed photographer Steven Klein.
“Gigi is my sister and my best friend,” she says. “If I got nervous [during the shoot], she would hug me and say, ‘You’re fine.’ It’s cool that we would be able to do that together.”
Still, Bella is an independent woman, having moved to New York last September. Given her uniform of black Balenciaga boots, vintage jeans and a Chrome Hearts leather jacket, the Big Apple suits her edgy style. Though she moved here to study photography at Parsons, she dropped out because work demanded too much of her time. Bella still finds time, though, to be a student of NYC’s culinary scene.
The model’s favorite dishes include pizza at Rubirosa and burgers at Ruby’s Cafe, both in Nolita. She relaxes in her East Village apartment by watching “Chopped” and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”
“The Food Network is always on,” says Bella, who had a food blog in high school. “I basically ran that blog . . . so I could look at food all day.”
Now, though, modeling means there’s a price to be paid for over-indulging.
“Honestly, I had pizza last night and now I should probably go work out,” Bella admits. Her recipe for maintaining that bombshell physique doesn’t include a fancy celebrity trainer.
“I do a lot of cardio and treadmill stuff and abs and booty stuff. My friend is sort of a trainer,” she explains, “so he has shown me all of these things to do. I couldn’t tell you what they are called, but I feel the burn.”
She’s definitely not an all-work-and-no-play kind of girl, though. Just this week, she was snapped out on the town with R&B star the Weeknd (aka Abel Tesfaye) — whose song “Can’t Feel My Face” is at the top of the Billboard charts. The two were holding hands as they went into Up & Down nightclub in the Meatpacking District, following a concert by rapper Travis Scott.
Though Bella won’t discuss their relationship, the couple have been spotted hanging out in Hollywood with Gigi, and Gigi’s pals Kendall and Kylie Jenner pop up on Bella’s Instagram. Emphasis on Gigi’s pals. “I love my sister and her friends. I love Kendall and Hailey [Baldwin] and everyone. But I [also] love being able to hang out with my own [nonfamous] friends that I’ve had my whole life. They keep megrounded,” says Bella. She has needed their support when her beautiful life has turned ugly: Last summer, she made headlines after being charged in L.A. with a DUI.
The ordeal was covered on her mother’s reality show, a pursuit Hadid says she has no interest in herself.
“The reason [Gigi and I] were on the show is because we were supporting my mom,” Bella clarifies. “I don’t think there’s a bad thing with reality TV. I just want to stick to what I am doing and keep it personal.”
She may have grown up in a life of glamour, but this model doesn’t take her newfound career success for granted.
“I am so happy to be doing this,” she says. “I just thought I was going to be riding horses all my life.”