Bella frames her riskiest looks as acts of self-ownership and artistic expression, insisting that her style is personal and that 'it doesn't matter' if people like it or not.
While she projects confidence, Bella admits to intense anxiety during these moments, calling her alter ego 'Belinda' a nervous version of herself who was 'really worried' about wardrobe malfunctions.
At the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Bella wore a Schiaparelli gown with only a metallic necklace for coverage, admitting, 'When I would look down you could see everything.' She also famously had latex spray-painted onto her body at the 2022 Coperni show.
Bella Hadid’s 30th birthday proves she’s mastered the art of turning panic into power; whether it’s a breeze hitting the wrong spot or a spray-paint job, she owns the moment.
Bella Hadid is turning 30, and if there’s one thing she’s perfected in her decade-plus career, it’s making wardrobe risks look like calculated genius. Celebrating her milestone birthday on October 9, the model reflected on her journey from a $7-an-hour juice shop worker scouring the Rose Bowl flea market for vintage Betsey Johnson finds to a global style icon. In a recent interview with E!
News, she emphasized that her innate sense of style was evident early on, noting, “I’m dead-on. I know what I like. I always have, since I was young.” This self-assuredness is the foundation of her public persona, but as any tea-leaf reader knows, the reality behind the red carpet is often far more chaotic than the polished images suggest.
The most dramatic example of this 'Belinda' persona—her alter ego—occurred at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Bella stepped onto the red carpet in a Schiaparelli number that was less a dress and more a metallic statement necklace. In a candid confession to Vogue, she admitted she was “really worried about how it would hold,” noting that “when I would look down you could see everything.” The anxiety was palpable, with Bella describing the experience as “very bizarre walking onto the carpet, like, with a breeze in places you wouldn't usually have a breeze.” Despite the fear, she performed a quick “cup check” before exiting her car, deciding that if her breasts ended up on every front page, “that's what was supposed to happen.” Her willingness to push boundaries didn’t stop at barely-there gowns.
In 2022, at the Coperni Paris Fashion Week show, Bella became a living canvas when three technicians spray-painted a white layer of latex directly onto her bare skin to create a dress. It was a moment that blurred the line between fashion and performance art, solidifying her status as a risk-taker who isn’t afraid to let the world watch her work. Earlier, at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, she wore a red Alexandre Vauthier gown with a cut-to-there slit, which she now calls “a big risk” and still gets embarrassed thinking about, even though “the dress is gorgeous.” Now, operating without the help of a stylist, Bella says she tends toward pieces that make her “comfortable” and “happy,” a shift she explained to WSJ.
Magazine in 2022. She noted that learning to ignore the critics was crucial: “It was really important for me to learn that even if people talk about my style or if they like it or if they don't, it doesn't matter, because it's my style.” As she returns to the runway, including a comeback at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2024, she teases that there is “a lot more to come.” Whether it’s sheer Saint Laurent, mesh catsuits, or free-the-nipple ensembles, Bella Hadid has proven that at 30, she’s not just walking the runway—she’s owning it, breeze and all.
