Gigi Hadid is ahead of — and often starting — trends, in no small part because her job puts her in direct contact with brand-new styles way before anyone else can get ahold of them. This was very much evident last night in New York, when she stepped out at a Tommy Hilfiger event wearing the one garment pretty much every fashion girl has been pining over lately: behold, the puffer. It also happens to be a piece that's been sitting in the backs of our closets since the mid-aughts, waiting for its time to shine. (Literally, in this case.)
Hadid was feting Hilfiger's new book, American Dreamer. And naturally, she had to rep the brand in some way. This time, though, she let Serena Williams show off Tommy x Gigi, and opted for a very on-trend, Tommy-branded metallic puffer instead. Pairing it with high-waisted, colorblocked, light-wash skinny jeans, a bulky turtleneck, and patent booties, the model made us check our calendars: Are we in the mid-'90s-to-early-aughts, or the mid-2010s? Because this looks a whole lot like a getup we would've worn to cruise around the mall during our Limited Too and Claire's-perusing tween years.
The puffer has been the unlikely comeback kid of 2016. All it took was Demna Gvasalia slouching a zip-up jacket into an off-the-shoulder silhouette on his debut Balenciaga runway for the topper to be deemed "fashion" (and no longer the coat you break out when it's simply so bitterly cold, "cute" doesn't even factor into outfit-planning). Raf Simons, too, endorsed the style in dramatically oversized form — which has become a favorite of Rihanna's.
Now, the trend as it appears on the catwalk is a lot more involved than its laissez-faire presentation may betray. Still, we've seen more lightweight, but fashion-focused versions trickle down to the mass market — and, suddenly, the jacket you begrudgingly wore during the chilliest days of February is now on-trend for both fall and winter. The Hadid stamp of approval is just the icing on this well-insulated cake.
This throwback style is basically the optimal winterization of athleisure, a trend Hadid has championed and owned. So, it's not all that surprising she'd gravitate toward the puffer. Now that she's been photographed in it, though, get ready to spot it on the street way more often. We're just glad this year's standout winter trend will actually be keeping us warm.