British Vogue - 10.2019

I

t’s a blazingly hot day in Paris, and inside

the glorious surrounds of Place Vendôme’s

Valentino atelier, Kaia Gerber is slipping

out of her jeans and into a vermilion wool

couture trouser suit. The beret she arrived

wearing (“I’m feeling very French today,” she

giggles) has been replaced by a headpiece that

resembles a Roman helmet dangling with

Komondor pompoms, and a hive of white-

robed seamstresses are positioning an exquisitely

latticed cape upon her shoulders. Suddenly,

there’s a whirr of activity; hundreds of pins are

returned to pouches strung around the workers’

necks as Gerber is swept into the ornately

gilded room next door. Right on cue, “(You

Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by

Aretha Franklin begins to play, and the sweetly

smiling teenager, who arrived clutching a book

and an iPhone, stands tall and sweeps down

a makeshift runway towards a beaming

Pierpaolo Piccioli. She appears transformed.

At the show three days later, Gerber (who

will have turned 18 by the time you read this)

and 70 women – from 19-year-old Adut Akech

to 75-year-old Lauren Hutton – will wear a

succession of looks celebrating their individual

identities, and receive a standing ovation. Fifty

or so couturiers, who spent thousands of hours

hand-stitching the outfits (Gerber’s alone took

750), walk the finale with them and Pierpaolo.

It is a moment that reduces rows of stony-

faced editors to tears. “It feels like if someone

were to paint a masterpiece, and you were to

carry it around with you,” reflects Kaia. “Or

imagine crawling inside a statue at the Louvre.

I wish everyone could experience it.”

To experience such a moment at any age is

remarkable, to do so at Gerber’s even more

so. Over the past few seasons, the model – a

Vogue cover star, runway fixture and Cindy

Crawford’s daughter – has evolved from a

dirt-biking tomboy into one of fashion’s

international celebrities, with an ability to

conjure ’80s glamour and fresh-faced

innocence that captivates designers from New

York to Paris. “She embodies the idea of the

young generation,” says Piccioli. “She is strong,

but she is also fragile; she is romantic, with

an assertiveness that I like. She is very self-

aware, and she doesn’t try to be someone else.”

Fashion is a curious space to inhabit as a

young woman, and to build your nascent

identity on the world stage is both a thrilling

and terrifying proposition. To walk a Chanel

couture runway, to dress up in a Comme des

Garçons showpiece, to tour the globe with a

relentless schedule of fittings, shows and shoots

is a gruelling sort of glamour. The years most

people spend sneaking into pubs and hurrying

through homework, Gerber has spent bedecked

in feathers or racing back to hotel rooms to

complete online education courses. She’s

already more than the face of a generation,

she dresses one: along with appearing as an

Omega ambassador, she has collaborated with

the brand on a camo-print watch strap; in

2017, she worked with Marc Jacobs to design

her own patchwork, bedazzled iteration of a

Snapshot bag (teenage catnip); and last year

she debuted a capsule collection designed with

the late Karl Lagerfeld (a leather jacket, a little

black dress, a blazer that rips into a crop-top...).

“What’s interesting to me about working with

the designers in a way that models normally

don’t, is being able to see the creative process

that goes on behind the dress, watch or shoes

that you are wearing,” she says. “It gives you

an appreciation for their hard work.”

It’s that same dedication that has coloured

Kaia’s career so far, resulting in an impressive

CV – one that ensured that, before she was

even eligible to vote, she bought her first New

York apartment (and an array of Bed Bath &

Beyond homeware to fill it). Her rarefied world

exists beyond most people’s dreams, but perhaps

what’s most remarkable is how naturally she

navigates and approaches it all without a hint

of entitlement. “It would be crazy not to

appreciate what we are doing,” she explains.

“If I ever find myself in a moment where I am

not fully taking advantage of it, I take a step

back and remember, ‘I’m in Paris.’”

Following the fitting – after Piccioli has

declared her look immaculate, her walk perfect,

everything about her exactly as he’d hoped –

we make our way to lunch in a leafy restaurant

Above: in Vogue,

October 2017.

Below: with

Naomi Campbell,

backstage at Sacai’s

a/w ’19 men’s show

Below, from top: Kaia

winning Model of the Year at

the 2018 British Fashion

Awards; and with her parents,

Rande Gerber and Cindy

Crawford, and brother,

Presley, before the ceremony

BED, BARTHES

& BEYON D

The darling of the runway, Kaia Gerber

describes herself as an “old soul”. Olivia Singer

meets the second-generation supermodel with

a taste for flat-furnishing and philosophy

LACHLAN BAILEY; STEVEN MEISEL; GETTY IMAGES; GORUNWAY; SHUTTERSTOCK

CHANEL COUTURE A/W ’19

VERSACE S/S ’18

CALVIN KLEIN

S/S ’18

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