Gigi Hadid Pledges to Donate Her Fashion Week Earnings to Ukrainian Relief Efforts
The final stretch of the fall 2022 fashion week season has proceeded so normally, you’d never know that Russia’s war against Ukraine has been taking place a mere two-and-a-half hours away. Ukrainian and Russian models were among the first to call for the industry to take action—or at the very least acknowledge the crisis—and slowly but surely, their international peers been stepping up. “It feels very weird walking fashion shows knowing there’s a war happening in the same continent,” the Argentinian runway regular Mica Argañaraz wrote on Instagram in the days after fighting broke out, announcing that she would be donating a portion of her earnings from walking the fall 2022 runways to organizations helping Ukrainians in need. Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber quickly pledged to the same, and now, Gigi Hadid has gone a step further: She’s donating the entirety of her earnings to Ukrainians in need, as well as to those in a similar situation in Palestine.
“Having a set Fashion Month schedule has meant that my colleagues and I often present new fashion collections during heartbreaking and traumatic times in history,” Hadid captioned a photo of herself walking this weekend’s Vivienne Westwood show. “We don’t have control over most of our work schedules, but we would like to walk ‘for’ something.”
To the 26-year-old supermodel, the crisis is about more than just Ukraine, which is why she’s donating a portion of the money to organizations helping support “those experiencing the same” in Palestine. “Our eyes and hearts must be open to all human injustice,” she continued. “May we all see each other as brothers and sisters, beyond politics, beyond race, beyond religion. At the end of the day, innocent lives pay for war, not leaders.”
Hadid’s sister Bella, who has walked 17 shows this season, has also been highlighting ways that her followers can help:
Meanwhile, as the season comes to a close, more and more designers have been speaking up. Giorgio Armani became the first major name to even acknowledge the situation when he staged his Milan Fashion Week in silence “as a sign of respect towards the people involved in the unfolding tragedy,” and Demna became the latest at Sunday’s Balenciaga show. “The war in Ukraine has triggered the pain of a past trauma that I have carried in my since 1993, when the same thing happened in my home country and became a forever refugee,” he wrote in a note to attendees. The house has gone on to partner with the World Food Programme.
