It"s about 6 p.m. on a chilly Tuesday in late March, and model Gigi Hadid, equipped with a jar of charcoal pencils, is gleefully scrawling enormous hashtags on the stark white walls of a photography studio in lower Manhattan. "I could do this all day!" effuses the 19-year-old Los Angeles native, who has, in fact, spent the better part of the day here, posing in sky-high stilettos. The following day, she posts a photo from the shoot on her personal Instagram account, with a caption thanking the makeup artist for her "on fleek" eyebrows. Some 24 hours later, the image has garnered more than 185,000 likes and 1,400 comments from her 2.5 million followers on the app. (Hadid"s total social following, including Twitter, has grown to more than 2.8 million.) It"s that social media clout-not to mention the stunning face, killer body and irresistible personality-that has helped propel Hadid, seemingly overnight, from up-and-coming model to global fashion celebrity. And brands have taken notice. Over the past year, Hadid has scored big contracts with the likes of Tom Ford, Victoria"s Secret Pink and Maybelline.
