Advertisement Close

Arab Americans

Gigi Hadid

Gigi Hadid

Jelena Noura Hadid (born April 23, 1995) is an American fashion model. She was signed to IMG Models in 2013. In November 2014, Hadid made her debut in the Top 50 Models ranking at Models.com. In 2016, she was named International Model of the Year by the British Fashion Council.

Gigi Hadid was born and raised in Los Angeles to real estate developer Mohamed Hadid and former model Yolanda Hadid (née Van den Herik). Her mother is a Dutch-born American, and her father is Palestinian-American. Through her father she descends from Daher Al Omer, Prince of Nazareth and the Sheikh of Galilee. Hadid has two younger siblings, a sister, Bella, and a brother, Anwar, both of whom are also models. She has two older, paternal half-sisters, Marielle and Alana. Following her parents’ divorce, her mother married music producer David Foster, through whom she has five stepsisters. In 2013, Hadid graduated from Malibu High School, where she was captain of the varsity volleyball team as well as a competitive horseback rider.

Following high school, she moved to New York City to focus on her studies and her modeling career. Hadid studied criminal psychology at The New School beginning in the fall 2013 but suspended her studies to focus on her modeling career.

Hadid’s modeling career began when she was two years old after being discovered by Paul Marciano, of Guess clothing. She started modeling with Baby Guess before stopping to concentrate on school. Hadid eventually returned to modeling,in 2011. She resumed working with Marciano, and was named the face of a Guess campaign in 2012. Hadid has shot three campaigns with Guess as an adult.

After moving to New York City and signing to IMG Models in 2013, Hadid made her New York Fashion Week debut in February 2014 walking for Desigual’s show. In the same month she got her break in high fashion on the cover of CR Fashion Book magazine. On July 15, 2014, she starred alongside actor and model Patrick Schwarzenegger in fashion designer Tom Ford’s Eyewear autumn/winter campaign. She co-hosted the Daily Front Row’s Fashion Media Awards event that was held in New York City on September 5, 2014. Hadid has also starred in campaigns for Tom Ford F/W 2014, Tom Ford Velvet Orchard Fragrance and Tom Ford Beauty 2014.

She was on the cover of Galore magazine and Carine Roitfeld’s CR Fashion Book in 2014.

Hadid appeared in the 2015 Pirelli calendar. In January 2015, she was named the Daily Front Rows Model of the Year, and a Maybelline brand ambassador. In February 2015, Hadid became the first ever model to cover the CR Fashion Book twice.

By May 2015, Hadid had walked for designers including: Marc Jacobs, Chanel, Michael Kors, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Max Mara. Hadid’s sister Bella is also a model, and the two sisters have been featured together in some modelling appearances including a photo shoot for V magazine in June 2015. In December 2015, she made her first appearance in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

Hadid has appeared on magazine covers including Vogue (United States, Paris, Italy, Britain, Japan, Spain, Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, China), Schön!Numéro, Allure, W Magazine and Teen Vogue as well as WSJ Magazine, Elle Canada, Dazed and Harper’s Bazaar (USA, Malaysia). Hadid has also shot editorials for VMAN, Elle, Grazia, Cleo, VogueSports Illustrated, Paper magazine, Vanity Fair and V Magazine. Hadid has also starred in campaigns for Guess, Versace, Penshoppe, Balmain F/W 2015, Topshop, Max Mara, and Stuart Weitzman.

In 2016, she has walked for: Versace, Chanel, Elie Saab, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Miu Miu, Balmain, Diane Von Furstenberg, Tommy Hilfiger, Fenty x Puma, Isabel Marant, and Giambattista Valli. In January 2016, she became the global brand ambassador for Tommy Hilfiger, fronting campaigns for underwear, apparel and fragrances. In April 2016, Hadid starred in an interactive campaign including a commercial for the BMW M2. She hosted the 2016 iHeartRadio Much Music Video Awards in Toronto on June 19, 2016. She co-designed a capsule collection with Tommy Hilfiger called Gigi by Tommy Hilfiger which was released in the fall of 2016 at New York Fashion Week. During fall 2016 Fashion Weeks in New York, Milan and Paris, Hadid opened five shows and closed seven. In October her boot collection for Stuart Weitzman titled the Gigi Boot were revealed, and it was announced that Hadid had become a brand ambassador for Reebok, fronting the #PerfectNever campaign.

On November 20, 2016, Hadid hosted the American Music Awards. In December 2016, she made her second appearance in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, earning her wings for the first time, and in the same month she won the award for International Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, presented to her by Donatella Versace.

Hadid and her sister, Bella, started off the Spring/Summer campaign season together- the sisters starred alongside one another in both that seasons’ Fendi and Moschino campaigns. Hadid also starred as the face of the S/S 2017 campaign for DSQUARED2.

Hadid was in a long relationship with singer Cody Simpson that Hadid’s representative in May 2015 confirmed had ended.

Hadid revealed in 2016 that she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. Vitalii Sediuk assaulted Hadid in 2016, and she was commended on how she defended herself from him.

Source: Wikipedia