A Woman You Should Meet: Gigi Hadid

Gigi Hadid’s moment—which has essentially been going on for two decades now—seems extra momentous right now. So, we’d like to take a moment to give it up for her. It’ll only take a moment.

In all seriousness, though, the woman is everywhere! She’s on runways, at parties, at the gym, on covers, still in Guess ads and in this year’s Pirelli Calendar. Busy as she is, we stole a few minutes of her time to get the lowdown on what it was like to work with Steven Meisel on the Pirelli Calendar.

I know that you said you channeled Cat Woman during your shoot for the Pirelli Calendar. Tell me about that.

When I first walked in and saw some images I had already done the day before, I was looking at the rack of clothes and asking Carine, where is this coming together? The Pirelli calendar in the past is more of a themed thing. I was trying to find a theme and what I realized when I saw my outfit compared to the other images, was that this was really a different calendar for Pirelli because every month is very different and it brings a different character and personality. When I saw my outfit, the first thing that came to mind was Cat Woman. I was wearing latex leggings all the way down so it was like a suit, and I guess that’s where I got the Cat Woman thing. I guess that sort of developed and evolved into just trying to channel a superwoman and bring that as a source of power with my body language and stuff like that. Like a superwoman in her lair.

In a hypothetical situation where you’re in a movie playing Cat Woman, who would play your Batman?

That’s a good question. Oh my gosh I’m so excited, that is so good. Let me see.

You can’t say Ben Affleck.

You know who is really cute… Who’s the guy from Divergent? Theo James? Yeah he’s cute.

So take me inside the shoot. You hear a lot about Steven’s eccentricities and his energy so what was it like for you?

It was very calm. You don’t really know what to expect with Steven because he doesn’t go in public, you don’t meet him or hear things about him. I really went in open-minded, not knowing what to expect. I just found that he was so respectful and so professional and so good at what he does that it was really easy. You kind of sit down and he’s like ‘okay, let’s just see where we take this.’ He takes like five shots and then he’s like ‘okay do you want to eat anything? Do you want to drink anything? Do you want to take a nap? Like dude you just took five shots why are you so chill?’ So he was very easy going, and that might have just been because I’m the youngest one, and he knew that I was nervous and just wanted me to be comfortable. I think that’s what brings out the best picture in every girl. Trying to see where they are coming from and making them feel comfortable. I had a great experience.

Do you use your nerves to your advantage or are you someone who likes to be confident and calm in situations?

Once I get on set I’m not nervous anymore. Obviously for the first couple of shots you’re trying to feel each other out. I usually can get a good feel for it. Once I’ve met everyone on set my nerves dissipate.