Plenty of room for everyone! While some of the original supermodels — including Rebecca Romijn and Stephanie Seymour — have questioned Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid‘s status as the same, Hailey Baldwin stepped up to say that she and her friends are just trying to make their way in the industry.
“The older supermodels sometimes don’t agree with the fact there is a new generation of models. We’re not saying we’re supermodels,” Baldwin, 19, told Harper’s Bazaar Australia (via Yahoo News). (She covers the mag’s November 2016 issue in a silver Louis Vuitton dress.) “I’d rather people look at us as businesspeople, and, yes, modeling is our business right now, but we’re not trying to take anybody’s spot, and we’re not trying to discredit the past.”
Baldwin, whose father is actor Stephen, shared a number of shots from the issue via her Instagram page, including an alternate cover that features the blonde stunner in the same dress but with a stark, slate background. She simply captioned the shot, “Alternate,” allowing her interview to speak for itself.
The supermodel feud started this past April, when Romijn, 43, told Entertainment Tonight, “I know a lot of people — legitimate fashion people — can’t stand it,” she said. “Hate it that these, you know, social media stars are now the supermodels in fashion. They are not true supermodels.” Two months later, Seymour, 48, echoed the X-Men actress’ words while speaking to Vanity Fair. “Supermodels are sort of the thing of the past. They deserve their own title,” Seymour said. “[Jenner and Hadid] are beautiful girls, and I support all of them, but they need their own title.” Her choice? “Bitches of the moment!”
Tyra Banks, however, came to the girls’ defense. “This supermodel war is raging and it’s really tearing me apart,” she tweeted in June. The America’s Next Top Model mainstay, 42, then shared a pic from early in her career via Instagram, with a caption that seemed to sympathize with Jenner, 20, and Hadid, 21. “I may look self-assured and confident, there was a lot of pain in my heart,” she wrote. “There were roadblocks and people who wanted to halt my success, but the fire in my heart and support of my mother kept me going.”
