“My casting is part of the Balmain DNA, what I’m trying to build,” he said, while around him, Amazonian models like Alessandra Ambrosio and Joan Smalls were being powdered and glossed in their Amazonian outfits, their hair pulled into high, tight ponytails that looked ready be deployed as whips, should the need arrive.Backstage at the Hotel InterContinental before his Balmain show here last Thursday, Olivier Rousteing, the label’s 30-year-old creative director, was explaining the importance of casting for his runway shows.
“It’s strong women, diversity, different ages, different backgrounds, different colors,” Mr. Rousteing continued. “They come from the world. They are part of my Balmain army.”
One of his most favored soldiers, at least at present, is Gigi Hadid, a reality television star turned runway presence who, at that moment, was wrapped in a cognac-colored crop top and metal collar, having her arms bronzed.
Ms. Hadid, 20, needs no runway to make tabloid headlines. She is a gossip-blog mainstay: for palling around with Kendall Jenner, who was also buzzing around the backstage area in her Balmain bodysuit, taking photos in Power Ranger poses; for her romance with Joe Jonas; and for just being Gigi, doing Gigi-ish things like picking up coffee or going to the airport.
But just before the start of Paris Fashion Week, she set off a major media reaction by issuing a cri de coeur on her Instagram account: a heartfelt and impassioned defense of herself against online comment-section critics, who have been quick to point out her curves, her slightly jumpy walk and her reality-TV pedigree.
“No, I don’t have the same body type as the other models in shows,” she wrote. “I represent a body type that wasn’t accepted in high-fashion before, and I’m very lucky to be supported by the designers, stylists and editors that I am: ones that know this is fashion, it’s art; it can never stay the same.”
By the time she made it to the backstage area of Balmain a few days later, Ms. Hadid had been deluged by support and said she had been approached by “everyone from designers to other models to drivers.”
Gigi Hadid’s Busy Month
But, “the ones that touched me the most were the models,” she added. “Everyone from Victoria’s Secret Angels to plus-sized girls that texted me, thanking me and saying that they feel so much of that bullying. It’s amazing, the spectrum that it affects. It doesn’t matter if people are saying you’re anorexic or too fat. It’s just that people are bullies. I was just kind of hoping that it would spark conversation. At first I did it for myself, but I think that a lot of people are scared to comment on the industry that they’re in and they feel like they’re not allowed to have a voice. I think that that’s not true.”
It did spark conversation, immediately. High-profile models and famous friends posted congratulations. “Couldn’t agree more,” Karlie Kloss tweeted. “Proud to call you a friend. #preachgirl.”
“I haven’t met you yet @gigihadid but I FEEL you so much,” Tyra Banks wrote on Instagram. “Your words are powerful. Your words are necessary. Your words are vulnerable. Your words are real. Sending you love and hugs. From one model that had curves and a unique walk to another, Tyra.”
Mr. Rousteing was vocal in his support. “I love what she wrote,” he said. “It’s really, really interesting and it’s really smart to write that now. We need more girls that actually have a real body. Gigi has the most insane body. I love her — she is my icon.” He cast her, along with her younger sister, Bella, as one of the sibling pairs in his fall Balmain ad campaign; Ms. Hadid also appears in the ads for Balmain’s collection with H&M, which arrives in stores in November.
Ms. Hadid has been walking steadily throughout fashion month, appearing at shows like Tommy Hilfiger and Diane von Furstenberg in New York and Moschino and Versace in Milan. In Paris, besides Balmain, she walked the runway for Elie Saab and Giambattista Valli, and attended the 95th anniversary party for French Vogue in a Versace minidress — the same one she wore in the brand’s show.
Her post had been a cathartic moment, she said, one seized and undertaken without warning to any of her industry agents. “I just did it,” she said. “My whole life, I’ve always written things down to get it off my chest. I’ve always had a journal for that reason. I feel like this would have been a journal entry except for the fact that I think it relates to a lot of people.”
Mr. Rousteing seems to agree. “I think we are in a moment where fashion is way more pop — and pop means popular,” he said. “We have been really elitist, really closed, in the 2000s. I think we’re back in something that is way more open.”
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