If you haven't heard, Gigi Hadid closed Versace's show for Milan Fashion Week. This morning Donatella Versace presented her Spring/Summer collection to the viewers of MFW, noting that this collection is all about a woman's freedom and empowerment. With powerful women from all around, including the one and only Serena Williams, it's no surprise that one of fashion's legendary female designers has threaded the theme through her collections, and is proud of it.
Not only was the crowd studded with major female power players, but the model roster itself consisted of nearly every supermodel you can imagine, including Naomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn, Adriana Lima, and Gigi Hadid, who closed the show. It only seems fitting that some of the world's biggest models walked a show about women's strength, no?
Considering it was only 24 hours before on Wednesday that Hadid was attacked by an unknown man in the streets of Milan, she has all the more reason to evoke female strength in Versace's show. Though one article may have depicted the stranger as an overzealous fan, Hadid has taken to Twitter to make it clear she was in the right to defend herself in the unexpected situation.
Ask anyone: When it comes to a strange man grabbing and picking you up from behind, wouldn't you have done the same?
Yas, Gigi Hadid — yasss.
Eva Chen is one of many applauding the recognition of female strength, as well as Hadid's own. The supermodel's friends and fans alike have been in complete support of Hadid and her self-defense.
Versace has been known to promote the strength of women all around, and with the show coming quickly after a man attempted to grab Hadid, it makes the show's message significant for fans of fashion as well as women alike.
According to New York Magazine's The Cut, the soundtrack was also key to the theme, with a spoken track playing through, "This show is for the women taking chances. Take the leap. Do nothing, we get nothing..." and finished off with a more direct homage to the women who have made history, "We’re standing in the shadows of giants, of women who left their mark on history. We love you, we thank you, we will not forget you. We will keep the flame alive … We, too, will take the leap.”
Embracing female strength and empowerment is as important as ever, as Versace expresses. While Hadid may have been casted to walk in Versace's show, having her finish the presentation is an honor in itself.
But to have something to stand for: female strength, power, and self-defense, makes her presence on that runway that much more powerful.
