Tommy Responds To Gigi Criticism

Tommy Hilfiger has clarified comments he made in a recent interview about Gigi Hadid, in which he said that a casting director for one of his shows had once said she didn't "fit in" with the others models due to her body shape.

“Gigi is truly the definition of a Tommy Girl," the designer wrote in a statement, reports The Cut. "Her magnetic personality is bright, confident and always optimistic. I’ve known her for many years, and am extremely proud to have her as the ambassador of my brand and as a collaborator of our collections. Any statement to the contrary is completely false. The headline from the interview with Yahoo was misleading and has since been corrected.”

In the interview with Yahoo Style, Hilfiger disclosed that the casting director for his New York Fashion Week show in February 2015 had said of Hadid, "She doesn’t really fit because you know she’s not quite as tall as the other girls, she’s not quite as thin.” He then revealed that this was the reason Hadid was dressed in a poncho - which became a bestseller for the brand - for her runway appearance. “It covered a lot of her body unfortunately, but it received millions of hits.”

“The casting people put Gigi in the poncho, and I was not happy," he reiterated to Page Six. "I was saying, ‘Don’t hide her body.’ Even though the poncho ended up being the best-selling piece, I was very unhappy. The suggestion that I thought she wasn’t thin enough upsets me to no end. Gigi is the epitome of perfection.”