Some of music’s biggest legends have taken the stage of the Roundhouse—the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Pink Floyd, to name a few—and today the famous north London venue played host to Rock Circus, Tommy Hilfiger and Gigi Hadid’s latest fashion extravaganza.
Hilfiger has been inspired by several of those iconic bands in his label’s history, though Hadid is certainly too young to have known those rock ’n’ roll glory days. She marched out onto the runway to a ’90s hip-hop soundtrack (what else!)—Biggie, De La Soul, Naughty by Nature, and so on—in denim cutoffs and a long coat, with a padlock swinging from her neck, an accessory that was first made famous by punk’s most notorious enfant terrible, Sid Vicious.
Overall the collection didn’t adhere to any one musical genre and read more like a mixtape of different subcultural references, ranging from the slip dresses of grunge to heavy metal–style merch to the voluminous puffer coats of, yes, ’90s hip-hop. Generation Yers like Hadid are more likely to cherry-pick from history in this way when assembling their style identity. Ascribing to one tribe or look just isn’t a millennial thing. The collection did have an overarching I’m-with-the-band vibe that was born out of the current trend for festival dressing—hence, perhaps why Hadid, who is no stranger to Coachella, opened with those cutoffs.
Thankfully there were no headdresses or flower crowns here; instead the clothes were accessorized with what looked like backstage passes strung on colorful leather lanyards, sexy thigh-high socks, and buckled ankle booties that are likely to be an instant hit alongside all the great outerwear—studded denim jackets, bombers, and cozy shearlings. As a supermodel, Hadid has an all-access pass to the fashion world. As Zayn Malik’s other half, she gets a behind-the-scenes peek at pop stardom, too. Given her track record of sellout collections for Tommy Hilfiger, not to mention an Instagram following that’s over 30 million strong, she’s fast becoming a rock star in her own right.
