“I feel that as a model, I’m a performer,” says Gigi Hadid in our April cover story, and you can see those instincts at work in the Jazz Age-inspired photographs by Annie Leibovitz that accompany it. But to feel her true theater-kid energy, you have to watch our latest video, “Gigi Hadid Can’t Stop the Beat.”
To understand just why Hadid wanted to embark on this Hairspray-themed adventure, you have to go back to her childhood, and also understand a bit of where her head is as a parent. “I grew up doing musical theater,” she told me when I visited her in Pennsylvania to report the cover story. “I love all things musical theater.” Among her school-age credits: The Wizard of Oz, Grease, Little Shop of Horrors, and, of course, Hairspray. She played would-be Miss Baltimore Amber von Tussle as a nine-year-old.
Hadid’s daughter, Khai, is beginning to display some of the same instincts for showmanship—and when combined with the influence of her father, Zayn Malik, it’s a powerful inheritance. “We always joke that Zayn has immense talent and is so naturally gifted, but I have so much more of that showman thing. You turn on the Hairspray soundtrack or Wicked, and I’m in full performance with Khai,” Hadid adds.
Which brings us back to the project at hand. This particular adventure was dreamed up way back in 2018, when Hadid collaborated with director Bardia Zeinali on a spring collections video inspired by Beetlejuice. It was, she says, “one of the most fun days I’ve ever had.”
“Once you’ve been on set with me enough,” she continues, “you start to see the show tunes that get me through that second half of the day, when everyone’s kind of delirious and goofy.” During that 2018 shoot, Zenali heard some Hairspray come out of her, and the seed of a dream was planted. “It’s been long-cooking,” Hadid says now. “We finally got to do it, and we’re so excited.”
The video is also the latest collaboration between Zeinali and fashion editor Jorden Bickham, who also worked on the Beatlejuice video. “There is something that happens when the two of us work together,” says Bickham. “It’s almost like kismet or fate, where a designer shows a collection days before we go into production on these films and it is as though the entire collection was designed for our shoot.” There’s a fine line between costume and fashion with this kind of project, Bickham notes. “I am looking for pieces that tell the story while still staying in 2025 and not looking totally backwards or totally forwards.”
For this fashion-laden interpretation of the finale from the Tony-winning 2002 musical (itself inspired by the cult-classic 1988 John Waters film), Hadid was flanked by the likes of Marc Jacobs (whose work was a major influence on the fashion in the video), Laverne Cox, Cole Escola, and Alton Mason—as well as a buoyant ensemble cast by choreographers Dez Soliven and Gab Robert, who work with Parris Goebel (one of the creative masterminds behind Vogue World Paris). The looks worn by Hadid obviously commanded the greatest attention, but roughly 25 other looks spread across the 16 dancers and four guest stars got not less consideration. See the full spectacle above.
