CELEBRITY
Gigi Hadid Recreates Kim Kardashian’s Taped-Up Look at Vetements
Kim Kardashian’s wild Balenciaga fall 2022 show look has since faded into the canon of wild Kim looks (see also: her veiled Met Gala 2021 moment and her ode to Marilyn Monroe a year later). But when Gigi Hadid cropped up on the Vetements spring 2025 runway at Paris Fashion Week wearing a similar packing-tape yellow get-up, it brought memories of Kim ASMR-ing her way into Le Bourget back again.
Hadid, who would later go on to walk Victoria Beckham’s runway in a see-now-buy-now Atonement-green dress, took her turn on Guram Gvasalia’s catwalk, alongside Travis Scott and J Balvin, in a minidress stuck together with wound-up DHL tape. It was a bombastic reminder of the pool of everyday inspirations that both Gvasalia brothers (Demna and Guram founded Vetements in 2014, before Demna departed in 2019 to pursue Balenciaga full time) dip into. These were, after all, the siblings who first shook up the traditional show format with a co-ed spring 2017 presentation entirely comprised of collabs with Hanes, Champion, Levi’s, Dr Martens, Eastpak, and the like.
The Vetements X DHL link-up actually harks back to the spring 2016 show, when Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy wore a baggy yellow tee stamped with the red postal service logo front and center on the catwalk. At the time, it sparked a media storm, as armchair critics argued against the appropriation of an everyperson company for the gains of a luxury house (those seemingly harmless T-shirts retailed for some $300). Though Demna said it was just a joke, it didn’t stop him from binding Balenciaga in similarly sticky style. (A bracelet resembling a roll of Sellotape, retailing for thousands, caused another frenzy earlier this year).
Gigi’s bandage dress is just the latest play in the brothers’ product placement game. Last season, during his return to Paris Fashion Week following a two-year break, Guram presented a huge T-shirt that read “Not Mom’s Favorite” across the chest, among other veiled references to the family drama he was, reportedly, working through. As Luke Leitch said in his Vogue Runway review this season, “You can unwrap [Hadid’s look] for yourself: the Gvasalia saga rumbles on.”