Are You Buying What Bella Hadid Is Selling?

“Don’t be so eager to be offended,” announces Lydia Tár, in a scene central to her eponymous Todd Field film, Tár. “The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity,” she adds, cluing in to the recent, not-so-secret meltdown yours truly has been having over the state of personal style today.

You see, I’ve recently had to move to a new country – on account of a family obligation – with only the barest of essentials. And by that, I mean only the most practical. Left behind, therefore, is my ultra-rare and ultra-slim first-gen BBag (it doesn’t fit my clunky computer charger!). Left behind are my silky flares and beachy knits that have little bearing in colder temps (and it is freezing out here, alright!)

Really, I left behind much of what I thought made my personal style, well, personal.

But this isn’t a lamentation on the woes of moving. If anything, limited closet real estate (or, dare I say, a capsule wardrobe) has permitted me to clash colors and pair patterns in ways I’d previously found bizarre, grating, and maybe even offensive!

Could I call this an evolution? Is this my epoch of experimentation? Who knows!

What I do know, though, is that for inspiration in my descent into fashion freakdom, I’ve been channeling one Ms. Bella Hadid – the uncontested queen of eccentric quasi-millennial and/or Gen-Z-adjacent styling (more on this later).

Today, we venture to find out what makes her style so interesting.

Model, Mogul and (Not a) Millennial

“In this age of chaos and uncertainty, when prime ministers have the shelf lives of salad, let us be thankful for one constant, calming presence,” reports the London Evening Standard. Alternately labeled steely, dead-eyed, serious, sphinxlike, or even scary “while still maintaining enough cultural capital to sell you mascara,” Bella Hadid is that omniscient, omnipresent entity of the fashion verse.

And yet, I was only yesterday years old when I found out that Mademoiselle Hadid isn’t the millennial muse I’d thought she was. She is, in fact, 28 years of age. Twenty eight! I turn twenty-five next year, for goodness sake, and this piece of information already has me hurtling down a quarter-life crisis! I’m now well and truly old.

Ageist digressions aside, Bella was born Isabella Khair Hadid to former Dutch-descended model (and Real Housewife of Beverly Hills) Yolanda Hadid and Palestinian property developer Mohamed Hadid. She is also the younger sister to supermodel Gigi Hadid and the older sister to singer Anwar Hadid. And with kinsfolk as culturally (or shall I say, kulturally – à la the Kardashians?) pre-eminent as that, you’d think it-girldom probably came easy to Miss Bella.

Yet, that wasn’t so.

Whether it be her penchant for photography over modeling (“Sometimes I think I love everything except being in front of the camera,” she tells Vogue), a nose-job that she got at 14 allegedly to resemble French first lady Carla Bruni, her struggles with Lyme disease, or her privileged upbringing failing “the purity test of the true unknown discovered in a shopping mall in São Paulo or Minsk,” Bella’s trajectory as one of the “greats” hasn’t been without its fair share of critique.

In fact, likely, she’ll always be that “successful second sister” in the vein of a Khloé Kardashian or Hayley Duff, and she’s made the most of that, be it at Fendi, Versace, and Balenciaga or at Michael Kors, Adidas, and Victoria’s Secret. As a second son myself, perhaps there’s some inspiration to be gleaned from that.

From Heroin-Chic to Depop-Darling

Of course, we may not all – by cosmetic witchcraft or otherwise – have faces “94.35% close to the perfect size of the golden section” or that svelteness trending in this age of Ozempic (“Seriously. Are the prominent ribs supposed to be aspirational? Someone needs to give her a sandwich (and a shirt),” writes a commenter).

Yet, what makes Hadid’s fashion moments so major isn’t so much her physicality.

It’s her realness to institute an edgy, gritty, New York identity distinct from her sporty SoCal sibling (like going brunette to suit her self-professed “darker” personality) to address fashion’s absurd body standards (“But then you think there’s something wrong with you, and no one around you is saying, no, no, you’re fine, don’t worry, it’s a small size,” she says of luxury sample sizes, “And you’re thinking, I guess it’s me then.”) and to throw on a pair of lo-fi chic wired EarPods and go on her little hot girl walks while listening to the Twilight trilogy (or so we speculate).

This realness makes Hadid’s unique relationship with clothing – at times weird and utterly berserk – still feel deliberate.

Thus, her style remains endlessly replicable. Especially those obscure-yet-highbrow thrifted finds (rimless Chanel sunnies, low-slung Von Dutch jeans, J’adore Dior baby tees, Murakami-inspired multicolor bikinis, a forgotten 2004 Prada number with “entertainingly useless buckles” or an upcycled Nahui Ollin purse woven from newspaper and candy wrappers that costs a grand total of $25) – that we ourselves could just as quickly log onto Depop and score for ourselves.

Celebs, they’re just like us, after all.

The High Priestess of Post Engagement

Like much else within the addictive world of algorithms, however, there’s a method to the madness. “It’s about building an authentic, everyday Y2K look,” says Amber Ramon of the Depop store Timeless Wear, one of Ms. Hadid’s longtime suppliers.

Yet, the Hadid Effect – as Vogue dubs the phenomenon – of “the art of the laissez-faire haphazardly chic dressing” is formulaic. There’s the uniquely vintage find (such as that übercool Gaultier jacket), the unbothered, just-threw-this-on addition (like men’s tighty-whities or wired headphones), and then a viral brand piece (like platform Uggs or Coach’s hot new Brooklyn bag). It feels just out of reach, yet commercially accessible if only we had that one trend item – the rest of it is entirely reproducible from within our own closets.

It’s a stroke of genius.

And it’s owing to this delightfully random hodgepodge of vaguely academic, slightly androgynous, part-chic cowgirl, part-frumpy librarian, part-recherché Y2K hype-girl aesthetic that Bella’s style feels so fresh, so versatile.

Plus, the numbers speak for themselves! Lyst, which named Hadid ‘Power Dresser of the Year’ in its 2022 fashion roundup report, attributes a “1,900% increase in searches” for pieces similar to her outfits, like corset tops (70% increase), cargo pants (56% increase) and platform Uggs (152%). Her presence on the runway alone, on average, accounts for 29 percent of a brand’s media value, not to mention that viral Coperni SS23 closing look in a spray-on dress that generated $26.3 million in Media Impact Value (MIV), acquiring the label 300,000 new followers overnight!

Yet, she’ll favor smaller-scale indie brands just as much to make a political statement with Japanese streetwear upstart READYMADE’s Birkin knockoff made from military surpluses or support Ukraine-born Bevza’s war-torn business.

Because her style, at the end of the day, is what fashion critic Hunter Shires calls “normal-hot” – a fantasy that’s still aspirational for the normal girl – or guy!

So, call her weird, call her fake, call her a fashion victim. Still, Bella Hadid lives in her outfits (that she sometimes puts together herself), goes on her silly little hot girl walks by herself (unlike your average penthouse-to-Porsche starlet), and sometimes plops herself onto the pavement for a slice of pizza. Now that’s personal style!