At this point, I’ve lost track of the number of articles announcing The Long-Anticipated Return of Bella Hadid. The first flurry were published when she appeared in bridal lingerie back in August; more appeared when she was photographed in New York this September; and still more clogged our newsfeeds when she was filmed kissing her reported boyfriend, “cowboy” Adan Banuelos, in Fort Worth, Texas, back in October.
And so, when Bella emerged from a blacked-out SUV this afternoon, it wasn’t so much a comeback (!) as it was a rare sighting of one of the celebscape’s most successful dressers. She looked as though she was about to visit a garden center or a supermarket café, wearing vintage Linea Rossa boots with a grandma-ish wedge that almost rivaled Lily-Rose Depp’s ankle-support Scholls, a trench coat and an upcycled Nahui Ollin handbag woven from old scraps of newspaper and sweet wrappers. The latter costs a grand total of $25.
If Bella used to be more of an archival John Galliano for Dior kind of person–dressing with all the moxie and berserk genius of a season three Carrie Bradshaw–she has since travelled even further into second-hand culture: from Vestiaire, to Depop, to Oxfam. This look might not be remembered as one of Bella’s more outrageous outfits–especially when compared to this, this or even this–but it does suggest she’s enjoying a slower pace of life out of the spotlight and off the catwalk. “I’ll be back when I’m ready,” she said in August, reflecting on her Lyme Disease flare up, but she has nonetheless “RETURNED”, as one X user commented.