Kaia Gerber, we salute you. The legs, the wisdom, the hot new Omega watch - we'll take it all
As soon as she hit 16 (the legal age limit for models walking on the catwalk, FYI), Kaia Gerber made her catwalk debut at the Calvin Klein show in New York. As the daughter of Cindy Crawford, it was pretty much a given she would follow in her mother’s footsteps into the world of modelling, and last week Kaia Gerber made another debut - working with Omega as the face of its new Tresor timepiece. We met up with the model-of-the-moment to chat style rules, social feeds and what it really means to be a super now.
She's not a supermodel. Yet… ‘When people refer to me as a supermodel, I think, ‘‘Give me a little time, at least!’’ The word supermodel shouldn’t be used lightly and I definitely think it has to be earned. But it’s an honour to be associated with who was there in the nineties.’
She grew up with Omega
‘To be a Omega ambassador is such a honour for me. My entire family went to the Beijing Olympics with Omega, and I was just in awe of the Omega family. It was on that trip that we got really close and I knew from that moment this was a company I wanted to work with,’ Gerber says, adding, ‘this is the first time I’ve worked with my mom, officially, for Omega; to be able to do shoot together with Peter Lindbergh means the world to me.’ What we would have given to have been a fly on that wall in that shoot, Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber together, boom!
Karlie Kloss gave her the modelling 101…
‘My mom never gave me a catwalk lesson.’ In our heads, the supermodel duo sashay down their hallway all day every day but, alas, non. ‘I’m not catwalking down the hallways of my house, sorry to disappoint you,’ Kaia Gerber laughs. So, apart from her super mum, who else does she admire in the industry? ‘I have always looked up to Karlie Kloss. She started out even younger than my mom, and when I started out she always had the best advice for me.’
…but Cindy is her all-time inspo
It must be pretty inspiring having Cindy Crawford as your mum, Kaia Gerber tells us: ‘She’s so down to earth - that supermodel version of Cindy Crawford wasn’t my mom - she did a really good job of separating her work and home life, and I admire her for that.’
She has a golden style rule and we are SO into it
‘I follow the rule of less is more. I’m a bit of a tomboy, I just like to be comfortable as I’m usually running around. I wear jeans and sneakers every day and look at watches as an accessory, like sunglasses. If it makes you feel good, you should wear it. Watches are a piece of history - that’s what I love about the Omega Tresor - how classic it is. I wanted [the design] to be something true to Omega while giving it a modern twist.’ Hit the full Tresor collection here
She loves a snoop in her mum’s closet
‘As a kid I would go into her closet and find her watches and jewellery and stack them up, literally weighing my wrists down. But now I have my own Tresor watch, which I wear everyday, I don’t have to steal hers.’ She didn’t just stop at watches though… ‘I definitely take a lot of her vintage pieces, they are the most iconic to me.’
She’s just like us on Instagram
Apart from the 3 million followers, obviously… but Kaia Gerber loves the way she can express herself on the app: ‘Instagram is the closest I can get to being who I really am - it’s easy to get caught up in social media but I don’t let it dictate how I live my life. I think when I was about 13 one person started following me on Instagram and I thought, how did they find me?’ And her fave person to follow? ‘ My brother Presley, because I would not know what he’s doing otherwise! When I’m travelling and he’s not responding to me, I have to check to see where he is. You spend so much time looking at other people’ s lives it’ s hard to live life in the moment. Some of the best advice my parents have given me is to be grateful.’ Words to live by? We think so, too.