Bella Hadid

Following in the footsteps of sister Gigi, BELLA HADID has taken the modelling world by storm. We learn more about her career, HER PASSION and how she’d spend a perfect day

- Melissa Twigg

Ciao, Bella!

Bella Hadid is eye-wateringly, heart-wrenchingly, poemworthy gorgeous. Raised by a Dutch mother and a Palestinian father in that glamorous LA world of private planes and exclusive pools, Bella could have been thrust into the spotlight as a teenager when her mother, Yolanda, starred in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But she and her two siblings retained as normal a childhood as is possible amid the Californian glossy posse, with Bella putting all of her focus on her equestrian pursuits.

‘My first passion is horse riding,’ she says. ‘It was my obsession. I started at the age of three and always wanted to become a professional.’

But all plans for a quiet life were put on hold when Gigi stormed the catwalks in 2014, wrenching her younger sister into the spotlight with her.

For the first two years of her career, Bella was accustomed to being introduced as, ‘the sister of’. And then that strange alchemy of fame occurred and she became a major celebrity in her own right, walking for brands such as Chanel, landing a campaign at Marc Jacobs, and becoming an ambassador for Dior Beauty. But Bella also has the cool factor of Kate Moss that the fashion industry worships.

And to try and understand Bella, her fans now follow her every move on Instagram, where in between posting memes and sultry shots of her recent Calvin Klein campaign, she wished a happy Eid Mubarak to her 14-million followers in late July.

‘I manage all my social media channels myself,’ she says. ‘I believe this is the best way to communicate with my fans and my friends. [I can] spontaneously share moments of my life and pass on messages to people within my community.’