Bella Hadid made a welcome return to the runway in Paris last night at the Saint Laurent show, following a two-year absence.
One of the most in-demand faces on the circuit – and a regular at Vivienne Westwood, Victoria Beckham and Versace – the model has been conspicuously absent from the catwalks for several seasons after hitting pause on her fashion career to focus on her health (she has spoken openly about her long battle with Lyme disease). She last made an appearance at Paris Fashion Week for the spring/summer 2023 collections back in October 2022, where she joined EmRata and FKA twigs on Mrs Prada’s Miu Miu runway dressed in a teeny-tiny crop top with a knee-length skirt and a skinny headband.
After a prolonged stint away from the spotlight, in August of last year Bella told her 60 million-plus Instagram followers she was “finally healthy” after 15 years of “invisible suffering”. She spent much of the rest of the year on horseback — including cutting competitively – and fell in love with the revered Texas-based horse trainer Adan Banuelos. After hard launching her relationship on Valentine’s Day, she set about hard launching her beauty empire, Orebella, in April.
Now, with a handsome cowboy on her arm and a line of sellout fragrances under her (tooled leather) belt, it seems Bella is ready to get back to the business of being a new-generation super. And where better to stage a comeback than Saint Laurent? On the first day of Paris Fashion Week, she strode out onto Anthony Vaccarello’s burnished bronze runway in a mannish black suit and tie, complete with a scraped-back ponytail and geek-chic tinted specs. Hadid’s look (which was just crying out for a giant flip phone) was one of several nods to the ’70s wardrobe of Yves Saint Laurent himself, which Vaccarello realised in the form of fluid suits and jackets over blazers. According to the house, the Saint Laurent woman’s contradictions “reflect Yves Saint Laurent’s own persona in which artful sophistication coexisted with instinctual desire”. Of course, this particular Saint Laurent woman embodies her own unique set of contradictions: a super who’s every bit as comfortable in the saddle as she is in front of the camera.
Originally published in Vogue.co.uk