Kaia Gerber is 19 years old and she just scored her very first solo American Vogue cover. She’s been getting magazine covers since she was what? Fifteen, sixteen years old. She even had a previous American Vogue cover, but she shared it with other models. It’s a big deal for her to get a solo cover, and Vogue gave her a full-blown cover profile. The piece is surprisingly lengthy, especially given that Kaia is really young and kind of boring. I’m saying that in a nice way – she seems pretty well-adjusted (considering her mom nepotized her into modeling at such a young age) and she does normal sh-t for her age, like get dumb tattoos, read “important books,” and have normal rich-girl friends. My point? I guess that Kaia is still unformed and somewhat uninformed, so why the lengthy cover profile? You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
Learning how to use her voice: “For a long time, I thought my face and my body had more to say than I did, because that’s what people thought of me. I always wanted to be good and easy, not to make trouble, but when you do that, you sometimes end up losing your voice.”
Her pandemic year was spent in Malibu: “We have a sort of compound with a garden, and a big lawn, and the beach that we could go to every day. I’m not blind to the fact that we’ve been incredibly blessed.”
Working as a model when she was so young: “My dad would call me when I’d be in Paris and be like, ‘Do you want to come home?’ At the time I thought I was fine, but now I look back to 16-year-old Kaia and I’m like, ‘Come home!’ And I found myself in situations where I was, like, I actually don’t have the life experience that I need to handle this. It could be something as small as knowing how to take the bus from the flight to the terminal. Or, I remember, when I started traveling alone, in Paris, my driver had to check me into my hotel room—I couldn’t even do it on my own.”
Her relationship with 23-year-old Jacob Elordi: “Being able to be with someone I trust, where we don’t want anything from each other, having a safe, steady relationship like that, has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of love and what it feels like to love without conditions. Lust is touching other people or wanting them, but love is really seeing someone.”
Dream of college: “I was one of those kids in preschool who thought they’d go to Columbia one day”—but she’s not worried about missing out. “I can always go. I have no problem with being a 50-year-old in college.”
Getting political: “In the past, I stayed away from getting political because I didn’t want to speak about things I wasn’t knowledgeable about. But this year, I really had an opportunity to learn… I want moms to be happy that their daughters look up to me, but being a real role model means also being a real human.”
She’s scored a role on American Horror Story: “I wanted to be an actress really bad when I was growing up. I was into musical theater. My poor family, they had to come to so many productions. They came to five shows of The Wizard of Oz where I only played a tree, bless their hearts.” When I ask her about Ryan Murphy’s show, Gerber admits that she’s “terrified. But so excited too. It’s a new chapter. And I can still do modeling, which I love.”
It struck me as I read this piece that she’s branding herself like a Gen Z version of her mom. Cindy Crawford’s brand was mostly wholesome too – sure, Cindy had an edge and she did sexy photoshoots, but Cindy and Christy Turlington were absolutely “the good girls” of that supermodel era, the good students who showed up on time and were easy to work with. I feel like Kaia is kind of adopting that persona too, or maybe that’s just who she is. Anyway, this profile would have been much more at home in Teen Vogue, Seventeen or even old-school Jane Magazine (rip). Also: Kaia’s stories about being on her own in Paris when she was, like, 16 years old? Holy sh-t, what were Rande and Cindy thinking. My God.
Cover & IG courtesy of Vogue.
Her mum was prettier but she’s a better runway model than her mom. She walks like Naomi. I know she started as nepotism model, but at least she put hard work in to her job. I like her.
Why is this in Vogue? what useful thing is she sharing for those who read and most importantly subscribe to Vogue? l think this belongs to Teen vogue…
Maybe it is time to start cancelling some of these subscriptions that go on and on and just buy the September cover if interesting
This
Yeah, I don’t why they gave her the cover. There’s nothing interesting about her. She’s not her mother and they need to stop treating her like she is.
She looks more like her father. Nothing extraordinary about her at all.
Understandable to hop on nepotism – why not get in whilst the $$ rolls, then head out to a life out of the spotlight?
Tho modeling & criticisms may take a toll & she has eyes like Edie Sedgwick, doesn’t bode well…
Yawn.
I can’t imagine pushing a young sheltered teenager into the modeling world and expecting her to do it alone. I’m shocked neither of her parents traveled with her, or at least hired an assistant/chaperone to help her. That could have ended really really badly.
She’s a pretty girl, but that cover photo is…not great?
I totally agree. This seems incredibly irresponsible.
As for the cover photo, it’s definitely not great. The first thing I thought was of Gia Carangi’s last Cosmo cover. Not that Kaia has her arms behind her back for the same reasons as Gia, but it’s an awkward pose.
<<This. I wonder how messed up Kaia really is? What drives a mercy cover like this one?
I remember a story about Richard Gere ridiculing Crawford’s mispronunciation of some cultural term when they were out antique shopping. Divorce followed soon after, with explanation that she wasn’t educated enough for him. Guess that didn’t make enough impression for her to want to spare Kaia from being put in situations she wasn’t prepared for.
This story makes Gere look like a pretentious ass, and not everyone needs to go to college.
@Kcat – Gere definitely did not come off well. This wasn’t something one would learn in college. Wish I could remember the details
See comments below by @Snappyfish and @Shalla7 for more context
Cindy Crawford was a chemical engineering major before she went into modeling. She may not have had metropolitan culture yet, but she was def intelligent. Boo on Gere.
I’ll say it. Leaving a 16 year old on her own in Paris to model is sh**ty parenting. I mean, if she didn’t know how to get through an airport, I can’t imagine she’d be mature enough to get out of bad situations. Cindy and Randy ought to be ashamed of themselves. It’s not like they had to quit a job that put food on the table or take care of younger kids.
ESPECIALLY when Cindy knows how many predators there are in the Industry. They are terrible parents. Both kids seem to be a mess.
Honestly I know she’s super rich and a nepotism model, but I came away from this interview with a lot of pity for her: she was pushed into work (highly paid work at that, with expectations, demands) very young, in a sleazy industry that preys on women and messes up their body image, was left to herself in a foreign country (oh, they phoned, big deal), was not encouraged to pursue a college degree (and her family can very much afford to send her to college). And only now, with an older boyfriend, she has discovered “love and stability”. It’s not a good picture. She sounds somewhat lonely, and very neglected.
When she first started, it looked to me like she hated it. Almost like she was just doing it to please her mother. I was going by her facial expressions and body language. She seems to have grown into it and also grown more confident, both of which I’m glad to see.
As for her being in another country as an underage teenager, that’s been going on in modeling for decades. Over the years in NYC, I’ve met a number of young Brazilian models who didn’t speak much English and who were all corralled into one apartment due to lack of money. (Apparently modeling doesn’t pay much in the beginning.) It’s an old story, unfortunately.
I was puzzled why her mom didn’t go with her, to be honest. Cindy has the time and money — i figured she could tag along.
I’m Argentinian and let me tell you, the stories fashion people tell about the Brazillian girls are horrifying. There was a time, I think it was during the 90s, when they would be sent here to take their first steps and afterwards they would go and work on the States. Thirteen year olds from very poor families, with no resources or people taking care of them, photographers taking advantage of the situation…
Ditto 16year olds going to Paris (or any large urban city) to model and doing it on their own. Most young people do it that way. Unless you have a momager, there is no other way.
And this one even had a driver to keep her off of the streets! I’ve done modeling and the thing that made it not worthy for me was all that hassle of traveling and having to safely navigate the streets. If I had a driver to take me around, man, things would have been much easier!
Nepotism. It irritates me too but perhaps, it’s just the sign of the times that it is out and in the open like this? It used to be embarrassing. I’m reading the latest Nancy Reagan biography – I didn’t realize that her entire acting career was one big favor of numerous people to her mother (a well connected actress) and her father (a famous neurosurgeon)! And the way I see it, it sucks. Nancy got work but she never got to feel, to know that she had achieved something entirely on her own. I doubt Kaia will ever feel bad about it, because she just lives on a different planet (“a compound with a beach”) though.
My best friend back in the day went to Japan when she was 15 for a summer for modeling. Can’t imagine letting my kid do that.
She sounds fine in this interview but she doesn’t have the IT factor. Her photos always bore me. Hell, Kendell Jenner looks like more like a model than Kaia and Kendall is a snoozefest.
None of the generations models have the IT factor. It could be that so many of them are nepotism models. They are not hungry enough or lived too sheltered of lives.
So true.
I honestly used to believe her brother Presley had the IT factor and then he started tattoing his face…
Kaia is an empty vessel with bland features. Cindy didn’t come off that way, she was accepted to Northwestern.
I think Cindy does come off as a bit of an empty vessel too. The only thing she really talks about with deep interest are her modelling photos. I get why this would be of interest to her but not necessarily to other people. On everything else, she is kind of dull. To be fair, modelling is her career and I think logically her own book of photos is what she’d know the most about. But I don’t know if it’s actually an interesting topic to those of us outside of it.
That said, in photos Cindy Crawford is very striking. And I’d agree her daughter isn’t quite the same.
i completely agree. i was just a child when “the original supermodels” were peaking, and yet i remember being SO STRUCK by Naomi that i asked my mom if i could cut up her Victoria’s Secret mail order catalogs so i could have “paper dolls” of Naomi (she said yes. also, one of many signs i was not straight…i cut out *quite a few* other lingerie models as well but Naomi was my favorite before i even knew her name or understood how famous she was. that’s her “IT” factor at work)
i can’t pick a single model from the gen-Z/youngest millenial batch that makes me feel anything. i do think it is related to the fact that there is an influx of nepo-models. no inner fire – no energy.
She’s got her father’s closely set eyes, otherwise she might. Her brother has the it factor, IMO.
Well, at least before his face tattoos.
She looks so much like her father, despite the push to make it seem as if she is her mother’s twin.
This cover is unearned.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak and it’s weird to hear her, she sounds exactly like Cindy. In the video she also looks like her more than I’ve ever discerned, too, it almost felt like a deep fake at first, lol.
The Vogue cover is, how you say, not great…she looks great in motion, though. Much better. But honestly the only difference (looks wise) I see between her and many of my sons’ female friends is a super pricey wardrobe. One coat of hers probably costs more than I spend in a year on clothes.
Did she actually want to do modelling? It almost sounds like she didn’t.
She sounds more articulate here than I was expecting.
That cover is not very super-model-ish, but we live now in influencer times so maybe the cover is fine.
All I could think when I reading about how uncomfortable she was to be put into weird situations at 16 while modeling-WHERE WERE HER PARENTS?! Her mother knows full well what that world is like. It was bad enough that they pushed her into it (and she is super bland in editorials) but to not be with her?!
I think Kaia was not completely alone on these trips or at least she was looked after. Naomi Campbell is a close family friend who still attends a lot of the big shows and The Hadid sisters adopted her very early and “mother henned” her. But 16 is way too young to let your child travel alone internationally in my opinion.
What’s weird to me is that she sounds both older and younger than her years. Is there a sense of alienation in her words? Is that what I’m picking up on? I don’t know how you have a sense of self growing up as she did, but she does seem to have at least some depth. It’s just so odd to me to hear such wistful words from a 19 year old.
I really want to see the sales for this issue as I can’t imagine many people picking up Vogue to read about Kaia’s college aspirations. But maybe I’m just not the target demographic.
Yeah, she makes a lovely cover model but she’s not interesting enough as a public figure or celebrity to warrant a feature interview. She’s probably too young to relate to most of Vogue’s readership, especially when you consider that most women who buy designer goods are middle aged or older.
Regarding teen magazines, I miss what I believe was the predecessor to Jane – Sassy. It was a great magazine in the late 80s.
Sassy remains the greatest magazine EVER.
I still remember getting the very first issue in the mail. It must have been sent because I had a subscription to Seventeen. It was sooooo good to read a magazine that talked about all the bands I liked and movies I liked. It was a game changer for sure. Christina Kelly was my favorite writer.
It was the only teen mag I ever read regularly. Loved Sassy.
Sassy was fantastic. It was smart, real, and fun. Going through the closet at my mom’s last time I visited I came across an ancient issue and reread it. It was still as enjoyable and readable as it was then, with an added blast of nostalgia. I was shocked at how well the honest, forward-thinking writing had stood the test of time.
I like what she said about love. Lucky to experience that so young, and smart of her to appreciate it!
Cindy Crawford looks like Kaitlyn (Bruce) Jenner. Gross.
To me, Caitlyn Jenner looks like every other white woman of a certain age in LA who has had plastic surgery. So…yeah.
Please stop saying Cindy had a good rep. She didn’t. Having worked with a few of the supermodels back in the day, Cindy’s rep was that of a shallow mean girl. And she was.
Hope Kaia is different.
What do you mean? I always thought she was professional and got along well with other models. She seems to be trying to stay relevant through Kaia though.
In the beginning of her career they tried to brand Cindy as “Baby Gia” so it would make sense that they would try it again with Kaia. Neither are Gia, they are just brunettes. As for Gere and the antique story, he did come across as a jerk but Cindy always pushed the “I was studying electrical engineering at Northwestern” story when she was only in school for a single semester. She would say he was the first person she dated who was a bigger “celeb” (her word) than she. As a couple they were pretty insufferable
Snappy, thank you! I thought of her constant mentions of Northwestern as well.
I am already so tired of this girl.
Please, as if education was stressed in this family.
Both kids are a mess.
That photo makes Cindy’s foot look HUGE. She should know her angles better.
I watched her outfits of the week video, although it was obviously sponsored, she seemed more genuine than other people featured. I ended up liking her, she needs to find her own brand.
I have to say, they need to stop with the “sometimes we don’t know if this picture is of me or my mum” because no one is buying it! Her brother is the one that looks more like Cindy.
Right? Kaia’s eyes and nose are her Dad’s. She has Cindy’s hair and brows, but Presley is the one who really looks like Cindy.
I have nothing against Kaia, per se. But it does get exhausting seeing all these nepotism models pushed into the industry, just because of their famous parents. Kendall Jenner, being another example. Not that they are not attractive, they are, but other models before them, have that special unique factor that set them apart. Elle MacPherson, Giselle, many of the supermodels of Cindy Crawford’s generation, Gia Garangi (as someone mentioned Cindy Crawford was labeled “Baby Gia”)…etc. These girls simply do not have that same “it” factor, as many others have said here. And as a mother, I would have never, ever pushed my young daughter into this industry so young! Yikes! Cindy is one of the lucky ones. It can chew you up and spit you out, and destroy you in the process (eating disorders, abuse, body image issues, etc.).
She seems like a good kid, and her comments where she sounds like a 40-year-old (“In the past, I stayed away from getting political” and her talk about love, lust and trust) remind me so achingly of myself and others at 19, all of us trying so hard to be mature and worldly, lol.
Yeah, she’s 19! Show me any 19 year old that has something wise to say lol. This is the problem with all the young teen celebs, they are pushed into the spotlight and expected to be role models. We really have to stop the blind celeb worship.
Yeah, the problem is not with her.
It’s with the people in charge of media outlets, such as Vogue, that try to put 19 year olds on some pedestal/soapbox.
Is Vogue ever going to go back to being a magazine for grownup women? I’ve canceled my subscription and stopped buying Vogue bc all I see in it are teenagers and women in their twenties. There are no fashion magazines for adults anymore.
I wound up subscribing to Vogue Italia, because at least the fashions were interesting and it seemed like it was somewhat aimed at adults.
Stunning celeb parents rarely have children that match their beauty. I agree that Kaia has too much of her dad in the looks department. I’m sure if she was at a normal weight her face would look much better.
I doubt that Kaia has told the whole story. Many pics of Cindy and Rande and even pressley in various European cities while chaperoning Kaia. The story of not being able to find the bus to get to the terminal is worrisome, as airlines also provide adult help to minors flying solo. This service is obtained during ticket purchase, which the Gerbers must certainly be able to access. Oh well.
This chick is no Cindy Crawford
I have no problem with her being on the cover, but yes perhaps Teen Vogue would’ve been more apt. She’s had life-experience being a young, in-demand model today, nepotism notwithstanding. People who don’t get it also don’t have another model in mind to replace her: this is just the state of modeling today. There is no enigma and social media puts them on par with influencers who (are expected to) overshare.
Gone is the fun, the wild parties, the “discovery at the mall,” and the Kate Moss “never complain, never explain” refusal to interview. Because these models are so readily available and so “known,” we can’t project anything onto their image…it’s just “oh there’s Kendall, Gigi, Bella and Kaia.” It’s not their fault because social media following/popularity also affects their rates/value as a model. Their “personality” and private life is supposed to be a big draw, and yet a life lived on social media burns a deeply superficial hole in any personality. This is the current, boring state of present-day modeling and it looks like it’s here to stay.
All I can think of when I see this cover is “stop trying to make fetch happen”
She doesn’t seem to be extraordinary at whatever it is she’s doing. She’s there. That’s about it. Nothing I’ve seen at her during her not that long lifetime has made be think she merits a Vogue cover.
I saw her vogue video 7 days wardrobe and i dont know why, but i liked her. She dont come off bratty or snubby like gigi bella or that jenner model I cant stand the boring jenner personality, but for Kaia, I liked her vibe. She has something very sweet about her.
Was this sponsored by Celine???
What she wears in a week reveals she has terrible style choices of her own. A plaid blazer over sweat pants? Black gogo boots with a white nighty that we are going to call a dress? There are amaaaaazing boots out there and her boot choices look like the basic boots you get with your Barbie doll at age 4. Simple and rubber. Needs to wear sunglasses with every outfit, not for eye protection, to try and “make” a look. Her looks are like an absence of taste.
Why does she dress so old!!!!!!! I have daughters. Girls her age don’t dress like that 🤨
What a tragic waste of potential. At 16, she should have been in school/preparing for college/ developing her mind. Not being sent to the wolves (a.k.a: modeling) on her own in Paris. I’m sorry you have such shitty parents Kaia. Clearly money doesn’t buy common sense. I really respect Madonna for emphasizing the importance of education in her children. Lourdes is probably the most grounded celebrity kid out there. @Cindy, there would have been plenty of time for your daughter to pursue modeling if she really wanted to in her 20s.
She seems nice enough, but Kaia is a catalog model at best. For me, Irina Shayk feels like the only current it girl who could fit in with the 90s supermodels. Karlie Kloss seems like the new wholesome midwestern girl, minus her Trump adjacency.
What is vogue trying to say here?
The cover is not great, it doesn’t highlight her uniqueness, it doesn’t show any personality.
It feels almost intentionally bad.
The cover is nothing special, but I liked the Outfits video. My daughter is just a little older and she’s into a similar look these days, lots of jeans/pants and jackets, sometimes with a little top underneath, boots, etc. Kaia doesn’t have her mother’s It Factor but I do think she resembles her. She’s a combination of her parents. She’s very pretty.
She seems like a nice enough kid. I don’t follow the modeling industry at all so I didn’t know who she was, but, I’ll take her over Jenner.
Nepotism is so boring. It’s all there is today, it seems.