Kaia Gerber’s new Harper’s Bazaar cover isn’t just a photo shoot—it’s a manifesto: the 24-year-old is done being looked at and is now deciding how she wants to be seen.
Kaia Gerber is rewriting the modeling playbook in real time. Speaking from her sun-lit Los Angeles home, the 24-year-old tells Harper’s Bazaar that a decade of being “a surface onto which others project meaning” has finally given way to a new rule: she authors the reflection first.
The supermodel progeny—mom is Cindy Crawford, dad is Rande Gerber—has spent the last year stacking credits that prove the shift is more than talk. She’s currently shooting Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s The Shards, just wrapped the high-camp second season of Palm Royale opposite Kristen Wiig and Carol Burnett, and will next appear opposite Anne Hathaway in David Lowery’s twisted pop epic Mother Mary.
From Malibu Bookworm to Billboard Muse
Gerber’s childhood was “book heavy,” a term she credits to Crawford, who lined the walls with Helmut Newton nudes and assigned her Ray Bradbury. “It was a gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body,” Gerber says, explaining why those iconic images never felt objectifying.
By 10 she was fronting Versace’s first childrenswear campaign, hand-picked by Donatella Versace. At 15 she left public school to model full-time, a decision she marks as “when childhood ended.” The payoff was rapid: Calvin Klein, Chanel, Miu Miu, Valentino and Saint Laurent all booked her before she could vote.
Trading the Mirror for the Stage
Steven Meisel taught her to relax her “claw” hands; Sarah Burton taught her to direct the gaze. Their Fall 2025 Givenchy campaign—co-starring and directed by Halina Reijn—casts Gerber as both actress and director, a meta wink at her new dual citizenship in fashion and film.
Theater cemented the leap. In Will Arbery’s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing at L.A.’s Rogue Machine, she discovered “immortalized memories that can’t be screen-grabbed,” a stark contrast to photos that “get taken from me.” Co-star Carol Burnett clocks her as “a sponge” who stays on set even when not shooting: “I wouldn’t be surprised if someday she directs.”
The Power of Underestimation
Library Science, the anti-bestseller book club Gerber co-founded, now counts Tom Brady and Monica Lewinsky as Instagram followers. Partner Alyssa Reeder says the joke is on anyone who still mistakes quiet for vacant: “Allowing people to underestimate you can be very powerful.”
Gerber agrees, admitting she long aimed to be “the easy one” until therapy revealed that deflecting vulnerability also blocks intimacy. “I feel more powerful when my attention is on someone else,” she says, noting that shape-shifting is now a conscious choice rather than a survival tactic.
What Comes Next
Lowery’s Mother Mary will test her range opposite Hathaway and Coel, while Murphy’s The Shards drops her into a 1980s L.A. noir. Both projects hinge on duality—perfect terrain for a self-described “shape-shifter” who keeps Duras and Carmen Maria Machado on the same nightstand.
“I let my identity be that I can transform, rather than what I transformed into,” Gerber declares. Translation: the gaze is still there, but now she’s the one holding the camera.
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