Kaia Gerber booked her first fashion job at ten, for Young Versace
Cindy Crawford's daughter did not wait for adulthood. At ten she fronted a Young Versace campaign, at sixteen she opened Alexander Wang's show, and by 2018 the British Fashion Awards had named her Model of the Year. Then she pivoted, taking screen roles in Babylon, Bottoms and the Apple TV+ series Palm Royale.
Kaia Jordan Gerber was born in Los Angeles on September 3, 2001, the younger child of supermodel Cindy Crawford and businessman Rande Gerber. Her father is Jewish and her mother a Congregationalist Christian, and in a 2018 interview she described a childhood that mixed Passover and Yom Kippur with Christmas, a blend the family nicknamed Chrismukah. On her mother's side she descends from Thomas Trowbridge, an English Puritan who helped found the Congregational Church in New Haven.
Her modelling career began absurdly early. She was ten when she appeared in the Young Versace S/S 12 campaign, and she signed with IMG Models in July 2015 while taking online classes through Malibu High School. In 2016 she shared covers of Vogue Paris, Vogue Netherlands and Vogue India with her mother. Her runway debut came at sixteen, walking for Raf Simons at Calvin Klein, and opening the Alexander Wang S/S 17 show made her famous almost overnight.
The following seasons moved fast. Karl Lagerfeld photographed her for Chanel's spring handbag campaign in 2018, and that same year the two produced KarlxKaia, her first collection. For the F/W 2019 season she walked 26 shows, opening four and closing four, and she became a face of YSL Beauty. Her first American Vogue cover, for April 2020, was shared with Adut Akech. In August 2020 she was reported to be among a group of high-profile investors who bought W magazine.
Acting ran alongside the catwalk. She made her debut at fifteen in Sister Cities, then appeared in American Horror Story and its spinoff before Damien Chazelle's Babylon gave her a first feature film. She joined Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri in Bottoms, which premiered at South by Southwest in March 2023, and played Mitzi, a would-be model in 1969 Palm Beach, across both seasons of Palm Royale, which debuted in March 2024. In December 2025 NARS Cosmetics named her its global brand ambassador.
Source: Kaia Gerber
