Accessorizing with your current read has been a facet of model off-duty style for some time now—Irina Shayk is the latest to join the club.
While it’s been a few years since the frenzy over what Bella Hadid and Gigi Hadid were toting in between moments at fashion week—for Bella, it was Stephen King’s thriller The Outsider poking out of a Bottega Veneta tote, while Gigi went for French classic, Albert Camus’ The Stranger—it’s always fun to get an insight into others’ cultural tastes and reading habits. Outside of the modelsphere too, Jacob Elordi was spotted with both an iced coffee and playwright Arthur Miller’s memoir Timebends, and Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn caused a stir in those viral photos wit Fantastic Four co-star Ebon Moss-Bachrach, all with Lynne Tillman’s Weird Fucks poking out of the back pocket of his flared jeans. And of course, Kaia Gerber and Dua Lipa run their own book clubs.
Yesterday (March 25), Irina Shayk was photographed in New York—she was dressed in an oversized, navy puffer jacket, a gray cargo wrap skirt, white ankle socks, and hairy mules, with an extra-large beige cross-body bag. In her arms was a copy of Marina Abramovic’s 2016 memoir, Walk Through Walls. The celebrated book was the first memoir by the Serbian performance artist, renowned for her confronting, raw, and intimate artistic oeuvre that spans socio political issues, our relationships with others, fashion, and culture, with particular stand-out works including ‘The Artist is Present’ and ‘512 Hours.’ The book traces five decades of her career, from her early life in communist ex-Yugoslavia, to her time as a young art student in Belgrade in the 1970s, as well as through her relationship with the West German performance artist named Ulay, who was her lover and sole collaborator for 12 years.
‘Accessorizing’ with a book is not to downplay a person’s engagement with a piece of culture—rather, it’s quite lovely to get a direct insight into what cultural themes are percolating in Shayk’s head as she goes about her day.
Shayk had a busy start to her year, dominating the runways at Milan Fashion Week with turns including Tod’s, Blumarine, and Dsquared2. She then jetted off to Brazil to take part in the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro for 2025. Understandably, some downtime with a good book is very necessary.
