World-famous model, Gigi Hadid has opened up about body image in a new tell-all interview. She also shared that she received some difficult comments on her figure when she started out as a teenager.
Speaking to i-D, Gigi, now 24 years old, said, "At the time I was still starting out in my career, I was coming out of high school, I still had my volleyball body. It was a body that I loved. I knew how hard I worked to have those muscles, to be curved in those places—I kind of miss it now."
She continued on to talk about how tough it was starting her career, as people told her she didn't have the "right" figure for high fashion. "At the time, people were hard on me and tried to say that I didn’t have a runway body."
As the stunning recent picture of her below demonstrates, it's pretty clear that Gigi slays on the runway–but it's disheartening to hear, yet again, of the pressures and expectations put upon women (which stretch beyond the fashion industry) to look a certain way. As Gigi mentioned, she was so young—just finishing up at school—when she heard those comments too.
She then shared how Jean Paul Gaultier was one of the first designers to give her a shot on his runway, and how she felt grateful when he chose an outfit for her which didn't keep her body covered up. "For Jean Paul to have me at his ready-to-wear show in 2015, not only to have me, but also to put me in an outfit that didn’t cover a lot (there were still stylists or designers at that time who were putting me in their shows, but putting me in something that really covered my body). So, for him to make me feel like he wanted me to shine in that way, it really meant a lot to me as a young model."
We think Gigi looks stunning (both now and then), but that it's also super important that an array of different body types are represented so that nobody else ever has to hear that they don't have the "right look" to wear certain clothes.
In other Hadid-based news, Gigi was recently dismissed as a juror from the Harvey Weinstein trial, which is currently on-going.
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com/uk. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.
