“I think the thing I’ve always gravitated towards, in my closet, is jeans,” says the model Gigi Hadid. “When I think about my childhood, a lot of it is denim and, in particular, my mom’s denim—more seeing her wear it, than me wearing it.”
Sure, the model and business owner may have first risen to fame as the Guess denim girl, but when she launched her label Guest In Residence four years ago, she started by focusing her attention on a different textile altogether—cashmere. In the years since, she’s built a cult following for her whimsical knits in distinctive shades and cut with a certain SoCal insouciance.
Starting today, Hadid is returning to her most beloved staple with the release of four jean styles: the Traveler, the Everyday, the Weekender, and the Workday.
“I think that this is something that naturally fits into the Guest In Residence wardrobe,” Hadid tells Vogue. “As a creative director, I don’t like to feel rushed into anything.
If it’s not something that I think I need in my wardrobe or fits with our world, I am still timid. But I think doing scary things is important, and we worked really hard to make sure that these feel like us and are something that I think our customers will feel integrity in.”
For some time, Hadid has sold limited quantities of vintage jeans alongside her core sweater offering, with consistent success. “So, with these little testers, we found that our customers would react to this, would respond to this, and that it makes sense to them,” she explains.
But when she started working in earnest on the collection a year ago, she had to look at denim in a new way: not merely as a customer, but from a more analytical, designer point of view. Hadid smiles wickedly at the memory of her team presenting to her huge poster boards plastered with images of herself every time she had been photographed in jeans through the years.
“That was really interesting,” she says. “I learned that my style really hasn’t changed in the last five years.
I’ll add little things— I’ve gotten more into a ballet flat or a skirt—but really, I’ve been wearing the same denim and the same T-shirts, and I rotate new things that I love or whatever for a season or a time. My basics are really the same.”
“Sometimes I see myself photographed and I’m like, ‘Girl, that didn’t work for you,” she adds with a laugh.
Reviewing and analyzing her own outfits over the years was an exercise that led the model to really ponder: What am I drawn to? What keeps me coming back? What do I feel like is missing from those things? “I’ll say all of them really came from a place of wanting to find things that are comfortable,” she says..
Hadid settled on four styles because, she says, she felt each “fits into different parts of my life.” There’s the Traveler, cut with a wider silhouette from the softest of the denims. It has a higher waist, a wider, slightly-flared shape, and comes in a buttery, lightweight weave, which Hadid describes as “soft, flowy, and chill.” It is, she says, “perfect” to wear on an airplane.
Then there’s the Weekender, with a slightly straighter cut and crafted from similarly soft denim, “great for running errands like walking the dog or a Sunday brunch.” The Everyday, meanwhile, is cut from a slightly “firmer” denim in a classic straight-leg silhouette, ideal for casual office attire. And, finally, the Workday, with a very on-trend workwear, double-knee look and functional pockets.
Each pair comes in a small edit of different colors or washes, and Hadid plans to cycle in more seasonally, as she does with her cashmere pieces. “There’s something that feels right for every personality and occasion, and that we designed to pair with our knitwear,” she said.
“I wanted something that fits every part of life in that way. And these are the ones that, I think, are true to my style.”
For a launch this important, Hadid had to get just the right model for the campaign. Enter… her own sister, Bella.
“She’s always like, ‘When are you going to put me in a campaign?’ We joke about it,” Hadid says. “And I’m like, ‘Obviously I’m going to.’ I wanted to wait till it felt right.’ And for launching jeans, knowing we were going to do this shoot, it was just perfection.
So I called her, and I’m like, ‘Bells, will you please be in our campaign?’ And she was like, ‘Oh my God, do you think I’m a good model? You’re hiring me?’” she says, giving her eyes a sisterly roll.
“It was so funny,” Gigi grins. “Oh my gosh, to be a creative director with Bella Hadid on set.”
In the end, the denim, like the cashmere, is both a bit of a selfish proposition (something she can wear herself) and a little gift to her customers; one that, she hopes, genuinely improves their lives. “The feeling I want for people is that your clothes are your home away from home,” she affirms.
“You put things on, you pack them so that when you get somewhere, you’re not fidgeting and sitting at a first date with someone thinking about how your pants are rubbing the wrong way between your thighs. I want these to be clothes that people put on and know that they look presentable and great, and also feel like themselves in.”
Shop the collection below.