Kaia Gerber is busy. She’s a model, an actor, and the co-founder of her own high-minded, anti-bestseller book club Library Science. But if you’re even a passing fan of Gerber’s — and how could you not be? — you probably already knew that. Here at The Daily Front Row, we’ve been fans of Gerber from the word go, but even we were surprised at how much we were able to learn about her in her latest cover story for Harper’s Bazaar’s February 2026 issue.
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
1. She was — and is — a total theater kid.
Talking with writer Durga Chew-Bose, Gerber says of her childhood: “I did theater. I did every community play. I was in choir. I did singing recitals. I danced.” And whenever her family visited New York, Gerber would make sure they saw as many Broadway shows as possible. “I saw Wicked eight times. I had all the lyrics to Rent memorized by the time I was nine years old.”
“I love theater because it is immortalized in people’s memories but not immortalized in … media. So much of what I’ve done — every photo — is immortalized on the internet. It gets taken from me. The wonderful thing about [acting in the] theater is kind of how I feel about my childhood. I had my experience, and the people watching had their experience. I can’t go back and watch from the audience. I can only experience it from where I stood.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
2. She knows people underestimate her and, in a way, she’s okay with it.
“I don’t think people realize that she’s in on the joke,” says Alyssa Reeder, Gerber’s partner in Library Science. “She knows very well — as maybe a lot of young women do — that allowing people to underestimate you can be very powerful.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
“I’m quite happy to be a vessel. It’s 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,” says Gerber. “Sometimes it’s easier to know that the projection that you are making of yourself onto the world isn’t the entire you.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
3. She grew up surrounded by nudes of her mother, OG supermodel Cindy Crawford.
“They were, to me, artistic,” she says. “It wasn’t vulgar; it wasn’t objectification… [it was] a gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
4. Speaking of Crawford, the Gerber family matriarch is no gentle parent.
“She doesn’t give out advice unless you ask. But if you ask, get ready, because she’ll be very honest in ways that, sometimes, it’s hard to hear,” says Gerber. “She’s usually right, which is infuriating, but she’s also very willing to let me make a mistake that she made 30 years ago.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
5. Gerber is tight with Givenchy designer Sarah Burton and helped design the outfit Burton created for her to wear at the 2025 Academy Museum Gala.
“She was very much part of the creative process when making the dress,” says Burton. “I always find things come alive when we’re in the room together.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
6. She suspects that what makes her a great model is also what makes her less great at relationships.
“I would say I romanticize,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m romantic. I’m 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’re not. My imagination is really strong, and it’s been such a gift in my work. Not always a gift in relationships.”
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
7. Her dream director to work with is auteur of suburban melancholy Todd Solondz.
Solondz’s latest film, Love Child, has been stuck in development hell for years as producers and star Elizabeth Olsen try desperately to secure adequate funding. Maybe he should find a part for Gerber. She’s got some chops — she was great in Bottoms — and it’s hard to imagine her involvement wouldn’t attract some additional financing. If Love Child doesn’t get made, Solondz has said he will “never make another movie,” so here’s hoping he can pull it together, even if only for Gerber’s sake.
Quick! Someone get these two together already!
Kaia Gerber (Luis Alberto Rodriguez for Harper’s Bazaar)
