Gigi Hadid Opened Up About Being Told She Didn't Have The Body For Runway Modelling

"I still had my volleyball body," the model told i-D. "It was a body that I loved."

I think we can all agree that model Gigi Hadid is a pretty big deal in the world of fashion — and she's walked the runways to prove it.

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From Chanel to Versace and many, many, many in between, Gigi has walked them all.

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In an Instagram post last month, Gigi revealed that the first designer to hire her to walk the runway in Paris was none other than Jean Paul Gaultier.

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And in a new interview with i-D magazine, she opened up about that experience, revealing exactly why he was the first designer to hire her — because people told her she didn't have a "runway body".

i-D

"[Jean Paul Gaultier] was the first designer that let me walk on a runway in Paris," Gigi said of her experience walking his Spring-Summer show in late 2014, when she was 19 years old.

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She went on to say that she was just coming out of high school at the time, and her body was more muscular due to the fact that she played a lot of volleyball.

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"I still had my volleyball body," she said. "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 explained: "People were hard on me, and tried to say that I didn’t have a runway body."

"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," Gigi said of her early career.

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She went on: "For [Jean Paul Gaultier] to make me feel like he wanted me to shine in that way, it really meant a lot to me as a young model."

In the past, Gigi has been open about how her body changed after she was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, meaning she had to take more care over the way she ate and exercised.

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"When I had a more athletic figure, I was proud of my body because I was an amazing volleyball player and horseback rider," she said in a Harper's Bazaar interview in 2018. "But after discovering that I have Hashimoto’s, I needed to eat healthy and work out."

"If I could choose, I would have my ass back and I would have the tits I had a few years ago," Gigi said at the time. "But, honestly, we can’t look back with regret. I loved my body then, and I love my body now."

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You can read Gigi's i-D cover story in full here.