Kaia Gerber is seated in a sunny corner of her Los Angeles home, flanked by bookcases. It\u2019s a rare week off for the 24-year-old model and actor, who is currently in production on Ryan Murphy\u2019s adaptation of The Shards,<\/em> Bret Easton Ellis\u2019s coming-of-age thriller. All she has on her slate for the day, she tells me, is therapy, though she\u2019ll admit later that our conversation \u201cfelt like it satiated a lot of that.\u201d <\/p>\n Gerber is almost startlingly forthcoming about her childhood (perhaps a product of said therapy), which she describes as \u201cpretty isolated,\u201d but \u201cin a really great way,\u201d and \u201cas normal as it could have been.\u201d She continues, \u201cI always went to public school. I did theater. I did every community play. I was in choir. I did singing recitals. I danced.\u201d Whenever her family visited New York, Gerber would insist that they attend Broadway shows. \u201cI saw Wicked<\/em> eight times. I had all the lyrics to Rent<\/em> memorized by the time I was nine years old.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cBook heavy\u201d is how she refers to her upbringing, which she credits to her mom. Gerber would trail along, reading whatever was assigned to her older brother, Presley, in school: books by Ray Bradbury, Of Mice and Men,<\/em> and so on. Today she prefers the works of Izumi Suzuki and Marguerite Duras and has found her people through Library Science, her anti-bestseller book club, which hosts author talks and produces cheeky merch like T-shirts emblazoned with a line from the 1970 \u00c9ric Rohmer film Claire\u2019s Knee<\/em>: \u201cCome to my house I have great books.\u201d <\/p>\n Gerber\u2019s childhood, of course, was anything but normal. If books were prominent, so, too, were naked photos of her mom, the supermodel and mogul Cindy Crawford, which lined the walls. \u201cThey were, to me, artistic,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t vulgar; it wasn\u2019t objectification.\u201d In fact, Gerber describes it as \u201ca gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body.\u201d <\/p>\n Rande Gerber, her father, is a wildly successful businessman and a cofounder (along with George Clooney) of Casamigos tequila. Gerber\u2019s close-knit family\u2019s then-cliff-top estate was located in Malibu\u2019s Encinal Bluffs area, known for its sea caves, sea lions, and exclusive properties on multi-acre lots. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so interesting to articulate your own childhood, because I have a brother who\u2019s two years older, and our memories are completely contradictory, which is really fascinating and I think has taught me so much about how multiple realities can exist at once,\u201d Gerber tells me. <\/p>\n Much of Gerber\u2019s young adulthood has been spent navigating multiple realities. In her world, attention is both a currency and an inheritance. She is someone who, for her job, is a surface onto which others project meaning. But expectations have had a way of hardening quickly around her: about who she is, about what she can do, about how seamlessly she will fulfill a role that others often assume has already been established for her. What she\u2019s reckoning with now, a decade into her career, is a careful recalibration of figuring out how much of herself to withhold, how much to offer, and how to transform being seen from a condition that has been thrust upon her into one she actively authors.<\/p>\n Gerber often adjusts her thoughts with a postscript of sensitive insights, a habit she and others attribute to her \u201cold soul\u201d personality. \u201cPeople think this is her first life, and it definitely is not,\u201d affirms Alyssa Reeder, the other half of Library Science, which counts among its otherwise niche crowd of Duras disciples recent Instagram followers Tom Brady and Monica Lewinsky. \u201cAlso, I don\u2019t think people realize that she\u2019s in on the joke,\u201d says Reeder. \u201cShe knows very well\u2014as maybe a lot of young women do\u2014that allowing people to underestimate you can be very powerful.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m quite <\/em>HAPPY to be a <\/em>VESSEL. It\u2019s not lost on me that part of <\/em>MY JOB is just <\/em>BEING what <\/em>PEOPLE want<\/em> ME to <\/em>BE.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n When I ask Gerber if she can pinpoint a moment when her childhood ended, she zeroes in on age 15. That\u2019s when she started to be homeschooled to accommodate her nascent modeling career\u2014a career that seems ordained, considering her inside track and inherited bone structure. Still, her mom was never coddling. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t give out advice unless you ask. But if you ask, get ready, because she\u2019ll be very honest in ways that, sometimes, it\u2019s hard to hear,\u201d Gerber says. \u201cShe\u2019s usually right, which is infuriating, but she\u2019s also very willing to let me make a mistake that she made 30 years ago.\u201d <\/p>\n Gerber was only 10 years old when Donatella Versace<\/a> handpicked her to appear in the inaugural campaign for Versace\u2019s childrenswear, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. She was a second-generation \u201csuper\u201d in the making, walking in Crawford\u2019s footsteps, wearing kid-size gladiator sandals. <\/p>\n \u201cI had all these adults, not only my parents, looking at me and being like, \u2018What should we all do now?\u2019\u2009\u201d Gerber says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t decide I wasn\u2019t in the mood that day.\u201d Although she concedes it\u2019s in her nature to be dependable, she is finally affording herself more grace and leeway. \u201cI was still so young. I was masking as an adult. Now that I\u2019m more secure in my adulthood, I\u2019m willing to show up messy and be kind of childish about certain things.\u201d <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before Gerber assumed her (runway) form. By the time she was 16, she was a fixture at her first Fashion Month, walking for Raf Simons\u2019s neo-Western Calvin Klein and for Chanel, Miu Miu, Off-White, Saint Laurent, and Valentino, to name a few. Gerber transforms into each brand\u2019s image: Chlo\u00e9\u2019s boho principles, Prada\u2019s handsome utility, Moschino\u2019s glossy commentary. (Gerber was feted in the latter as a literal bouquet of flowers.) \u201cI\u2019m quite happy to be a vessel. It\u2019s not lost on me that part of my job is just being what people want me to be and being a canvas or mirror for people to reflect their own ideas onto.\u201d A line from Marguerite Duras\u2019s The Lover, <\/em>a favorite of Gerber\u2019s, spoken by the unnamed narrator, comes to mind: \u201cI can become anything anyone wants me to be. And believe it.\u200a\u2026\u2009And when I believe it, and it becomes true for anyone seeing me who wants me to be according to his taste, I know that too.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI am a <\/em>SHAPE-SHIFTER. I let my <\/em>IDENTITY be that I can <\/em>TRANSFORM, rather than <\/em>WHAT\u2028I transformed <\/em>INTO.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n Being looked at, or at least the recognition of one\u2019s power to attract scrutiny, is a shift that most girls encounter at some point. For Gerber, this audit was premature, due to her twin resemblance with Crawford and the fashion industry\u2019s documentation of it. She was obliged to navigate this attention acutely while posing for it professionally. <\/p>\n In her fashion work, the gaze has mostly been male. She says she learned a lot from Steven Meisel, who famously places a mirror in front of his models to aid with awareness. Gerber credits Meisel with teaching her to relax her otherwise stiffened hands, habitually in the shape of a claw. Gerber\u2019s modeling evolution is clear in a quick look at her campaigns, going from beachy muse for Daisy Love by Marc Jacobs to Hedi Slimane\u2019s rock hybrid of Paris-L.A. iconography (and a sporty Pilates offshoot) to a very Cindy homage staged at the artist Sterling Ruby\u2019s studio for Pieter Mulier\u2019s Ala\u00efa<\/a>. It wasn\u2019t until Gerber\u2019s longstanding friendship turned collaboration with Sarah Burton, and the designer\u2019s revival of Givenchy\u2019s codes, that the perspective shifted. In a Fall 2025 campaign directed by and costarring Babygirl<\/em>\u2019s Halina Reijn, Gerber and the Dutch director play \u201cactress\u201d and \u201cdirector.\u201d They run lines and block a scene. Gerber wears a red mini pencil dress in counterpoint to a smart pair of loafers. The combination reflects Gerber\u2019s unfussy personal style: a mix of clean lines, American prep, and pretty touches like camisoles, cardigans, and ballet flats. <\/p>\n Under Burton\u2019s watch, Gerber\u2019s red-carpet silhouettes attest to her multihyphenate moment with details that exude romance, strength, and, thankfully, some play. At last fall\u2019s Academy Museum Gala, Gerber wore a custom Lyon-lace cape-back dress that called to mind the original Givenchy muse, Audrey Hepburn. \u201cTimeless and modern, completely embodying Kaia\u201d is how Burton describes the garment. \u201cShe was very much part of the creative process when making the dress. I always find things come alive when we\u2019re in the room together.\u201d Owing in part to some of her high-profile relationships, Gerber is frequently chronicled by paparazzi, either as she walks her dog, Milo, when she\u2019s on her way to the gym, or when she\u2019s accompanied by a boyfriend. I ask Gerber if she considers herself a romantic person. \u201cI would say I romanticize,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m romantic. I\u2019m a daydreamer. I play out every scenario in my head. I can kind of convince myself that someone is anything that I want, even if they do everything to prove that they\u2019re not. My imagination is really strong, and it\u2019s been such a gift in my work. Not always a gift in relationships.\u201d <\/p>\n Her attitude to her personal life\u2019s public access is both refreshing and realistic. A common refrain in interviews is how Gerber is misunderstood. She admits she is partly accountable for this chronic theme and explains it as a manner of self-preservation. \u201cThe fact that I constantly talk about it means I have an issue with it,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s something that will ever be conquered, and I\u2019m coming to terms with that. Sometimes it\u2019s easier to know that the projection that you are making of yourself onto the world isn\u2019t the entire you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow that I\u2019m more <\/em>SECURE in my <\/em>ADULTHOOD, I\u2019m willing to <\/em>SHOW UP MESSY and be kind of <\/em>CHILDISH about <\/em>CERTAIN THINGS.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n Acting has provided Gerber with a sense of generative dissonance; it\u2019s both a release and an opportunity to regain control. She credits her theater work, most recently a role in Will Arbery\u2019s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing<\/em> at the Rogue Machine Theatre in Los Angeles, with being a safe, auspicious space for her to navigate and, more critically, escape into character. \u201cI love theater because it is immortalized in people\u2019s memories but not immortalized in\u2009\u2026\u2009media. So much of what I\u2019ve done\u2014every photo\u2014is immortalized on the internet. It gets taken from me. The wonderful thing about theater is kind of how I feel about my childhood. I had my experience, and the people watching had their experience. I can\u2019t go back and watch from the audience. I can only experience it from where I stood.\u201d <\/p>\n Theater as a showground for exploring the full-blown impact of her emotional edges has also helped Gerber access something else. Gerber admits that prior to her stage work, she\u2019d always wanted to be seen as \u201cthe easy one.\u201d I ask her what she means. \u201cSomeone who doesn\u2019t need attention, like, an \u2018Oh, we don\u2019t worry about her\u2019 kind of person. But I\u2019ve recently realized that it actually prevents people from feeling genuinely close to you if you\u2019re not sharing your vulnerabilities with them.\u201d Gerber confesses she was likely attempting to prevent closeness. \u201cI\u2019m quite good at deflecting. I believe that power and dominance, a lot of the time, is attention, and I think I feel more powerful when my attention is on someone else.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/hbz020126wellcoverstory-003-wm-695fe2b42faac.jpg?resize=980:*\" "\\"fashion")
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