Cashmere, Creativity, and Comfortability with Gigi Hadid
As we approach spring, Penn students can look towards Gigi Hadid’s new sustainable cashmere collection: Guest in Residence. It’s a great way to buy a long-lasting, quality piece with the bonus of supporting its sustainable values. This cashmere brand can last students all four years of college and beyond!
When forming this brand during the pandemic, Gigi Hadid spent a lot of time with her daughter, Khai, and began to ponder what her next step in her career would be. Gigi has always had a knack for creativity and authenticity. She wanted to transfer her love and passion for modeling and wearing luxury brands to designing one that was authentically her.
Inspired by her family, in September of 2022, Hadid created the brand Guest in Residence to create accessible pieces that were chic and long-lasting. Gigi shared with Vogue how developing her brand feels like a natural next step. The inspiration for this brand came from her mother and father. They taught her to invest in quality pieces that could one day be a hand-me-down for a loved one. Hadid wanted to create a clothing line where sweaters, pants, and accessories were made from high-quality cashmere with clean-cut stitching. Her clothing is made from long-fiber cashmere sourced from Inner Mongolia. This fiber is biodegradable and prevents pilling, a common sign of bad-quality sweater fabrics that causes the fibers to break down and clump. Hadid wanted to create a sweater that could last a lifetime.
The name Guest in Residence comes from how Hadid wants us to feel in our clothes, utterly at home and comfortable with ourselves. The name also relates to the brand’s sustainability mission: Hadid believes we should be guests in our clothes, just as we are on the plant. As she says, “Clothes, when well made, can have many different lives, different owners, and different stories.” Substantial clothing can serve as an heirloom and a gift that can be passed down to the future.
Here are some of the cutest pieces from her line, from loungewear to statement pieces, to help you face the cold in style:
Showtime Shirt / Courtesy of Guest in Residence.
Lumberjack Shirt / Courtesy of Guest in Residence.
The Big Scarf / Courtesy of Guest in Residence.
Hadid’s grandmother has two rules when it comes to cashmere care. First, anything that works on your hair works on cashmere. Second, hang your sweater outside the window to air it out instead of washing it after each use. Hadid took her grandmother’s advice and applied that directly to her new brand.
The debut shoot, as well as the other photos on the website, was shot by Pablo Di Prima. Featuring both professional and amateur models from infants to octogenarians, Gigi wanted her brand to feel real and accessible to all. This campaign featured models from infant age to 100 years old. It was important that the clothing was worn by people of every sector of life to showcase the meaning and thought that was put behind the development of the brand that valued diversity.
Courtesy of models.com by Pablo Di Prima.
Guest in Residence is a brand worth investing in – for both the quality and the meaning behind the clothing. The pure cashmere clothing created by Gigi Hadid is meant to last for years, not just seasons. If you need a quality sweater piece this year to wear while strutting down Locust or studying in Saxby’s, Hadid’s cashmere should be a welcome guest in your closet.
Featured image courtesy of Women’s Wear Daily.