Gigi Hadid to Body-Shamers: “If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Follow Me”
Gig Hadid on the Dolce & Gabbana runway during Milan Fashion Week in February. Photo: Getty Images
Gigi Hadid has abs that work wonderfully with crop tops, legs that look amazing in skinny jeans, arms that make tank tops almost a daily requirement, and a beautiful face that looks fresh even without makeup. But despite all of these enviable characteristics, getting booked by major designers in fashion weeks around the world, landing September covers of magazines, and signing major beauty contracts, the 20-year-old still faces fat shaming.
On Monday before the start of Paris Fashion Week, she took to Instagram to share her feelings on the negativity directed at her on social media. Many seemed to comment that the California native doesn’t have the body of other runway walkers — really tall, very thin (to an almost dangerous extent) — and therefore is undeserving of the jobs she’s booked and the careers she’s cultivated. “You can make up all the reasons you think I am where I am, but really, I’m a hard worker that’s confident in myself, one that came at a time where the fashion industry was ready for a change,” she wrote in the post.
The post in its entirety. Photo: @gigihadid/Instagram
Hadid, who walked in the Versace show in Milan, noted that she’s representative of the new type of woman accepted into the world of high-fashion, one with breasts, thighs, and a butt. “Your mean comments don’t make me want to change my body, they don’t make me want to say no to the designers that ask me to be in their shows, and they definitely don’t change the designers’ opinions of me,” she added. “If I didn’t have the body I do, I wouldn’t have the career I do. I love that I can be sexy. I’m proud of it.”
While it’s true that Hadid is a member of a new guard of model, valued for her social media impressions, personality, and mass market appeal more than her frame, as she points out, she’s still “fitting into the sample sizes.” She concluded by saying, “I hope everyone gets to a place in their life where they’d rather talk about the things that inspire them over the things that bring others down. At least be open if not part of the change, because it’s undeniably happening.”
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