Whatever strange dance dating as a supermodel might require, she describes her relationship now as “very romantic and happy,” though there are parts of it she wants to keep to herself, not because there is anything especially secretive about it, but because “it’s just not part of our relationship to share for whatever reason.” She’s aware that people—those unnamed “sources” upon which an entire ecosystem of clickbait headlines rests—will provide information “that’s kind of right and kind of wrong,” she says. But “you just have to let it go; you can’t always correct everything.”
What she does tell me about this relationship makes it seem like it might not have taken place at an earlier stage in her life. “I think just getting to the point where knowing what you want and deserve in a relationship is essential,” she says, “and then to find someone that is in a place in their life where they know what they want and deserve…and you both do work separately to come together and be the best partner that you can be. I just feel really lucky. Yeah, lucky’s the word.
“I respect him so much as a creative,” she continues, “and I feel that he gives so much to me: encouragement and, just, belief. For those people you admire to encourage you, it can create so much belief in yourself. Like, what’s the worst thing if I auditioned for this? You jump and take the leap.”
The next day, eight flights up, in a bright, whitewashed studio on the West Side of Manhattan, Gigi Hadid is not quite leaping, but radiating some of the energy of the musical theater kid she once was, performing for the camera. “I have always been impressed by Gigi,” says Miuccia Prada, another one of her early champions. “She is incredibly professional and charming at the same time, always in a good mood and gentle. She holds a special place not only in the world of fashion and has done so for a long time. It is the result of the hard work and the commitment she puts into all she does.”
Hadid is shooting the spring-summer looks for Guest in Residence; the new collection will launch just 10 days later. The studio is littered with props: water guns, Hula-Hoops, foam pool noodles, flip-flops, New Balance sneakers with the laces untied. The theme of the shoot is “postcard from nowhere,” or, perhaps more aptly, anywhere the sun shines. Today, it is 20-something degrees outside, but a pool day in the studio.
Hadid has layered her own narrative onto the concept. “He’s coming back soon,” she croons in falsetto, draping herself over a giant beach ball. She is a mid-century astronaut’s wife, gazing up at Sputnik and nursing a martini. It’s a little bit plastic, a little bit Stepford. One gets the sense that the other models in the shoot, game as they are, haven’t quite caught the high-speed train of her narrative, even though she’s sweetly explaining it to them. Initially, the idea had been for her hair to be quite natural, she tells me, but she had her stylist, Dimitris Giannetos, shellac it into a Mary Tyler Moore–style flipped-up bob, a smile of a hairdo. “I’m thinking about the cupcakes,” Hadid belts out more than once while the shutter snaps. “Does everyone know that I brought cupcakes?”
Guest in Residence employees, from the summer intern turned marketing coordinator to the e-commerce manager, filter in. Apart from the core people involved in the shoot—Rossella Raffi, the chief marketing officer; Hadid’s business partner Isaac Ross; the art director Paolo Santosuosso—it doesn’t feel like the staff needs to be there, but they settle comfortably along the sidelines nonetheless. With Hadid, says Guest in Residence design director Sijeo Kim, “it’s not like, Okay, I have all the authority, so you do this,” she tells me. “It’s more like, We’re in this together. Let’s talk about the idea.” Kim describes meeting Hadid for the first time at her apartment; she was carefully dressed in supporting-staff black, while Gigi was in a leather jacket with a power shoulder—both of them now aware that they were trying out roles.
