Gigi Hadid was told she didn’t have a “runway body”

ABC/Image Group LA(LONDON) — As if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough, imagine adding the stress of having your body criticized by some of the world’s top designers. That’s exactly what model Gigi Hadid had to endure when she started out her career and now she’s opening up about it.

In a candid interview for i-D’s Spring issue, the 24-year-old recalled what it was like when she received her first Paris casting by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

“He was the first designer that let me walk on a runway in Paris,” Gigi shared. “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. “At the time, people were hard on me and tried to say that I didn’t have a runway body.”

These days, the bonafide supermodel is featured in high profile campaigns and on runways all around the world — in sometimes very scant clothing – but she admitted that it was Gaultier who first gave her the opportunity to shine.

Gigi said, “For Jean Paul to have me at his last 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… like, there were still stylists or designers at that time who were putting me in their shows, but putting me something that really covered my body. And 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.”

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