Anwar Hadid

Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.

Ok, so we’re not in the air. Yet. We’re on the 3rd floor of a photo studio in Chinatown, and Anwar Hadid is doing push-ups and wondering where his pants are. He’s been shooting this cover for a little over an hour. When I walked in 5 minutes ago, he was wearing an orange Hussar jacket, unbuttoned to reveal his very tattooed torso. That was the final look, so now he’s getting back into his Anwarian uniform: grey trousers and a little black t-shirt that just barely covers his midriff.

Being on set is nothing new for Anwar, the 26-year-old younger brother of supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid. While he has worked as a model, doing campaigns and walking runways for designers like Versace and Valentino, he’s now walking down a different path: one he’s carved out himself. In September, he co-launched OBSIDIAN, a collection of leather accessories and select clothing items, with friend and designer Ty Stephano. He’s also the frontman of a band, howVanish, who just released their first single, “Cinnamon.”

When I meet Hadid on set, he’s buzzing with energy. First, you notice his height (over 6 feet), and then you notice his eyes. They’re the kind seen in beauty campaigns, multicolored and insane, like a Snapchat filter. Bright green with rings of yellowy-orange around the pupils, fire pits by the lake. You get the sense that he can open doors and turn lights on with them.

He daps me up and shows me his Flightless bag, a messenger-style silhouette he designed for OBSIDIAN (and the piece he’s most excited for). The cushy black leather bag feels like an extension of himself, an extra limb made of lambskin. It holds his personal belongings (a notebook, Zyn container, etc.), and he’s tied a piece of red cloth around one of the handles for a personal touch. It’s one of those things that only works because he’s Anwar Hadid. If I tried to tie the same red cloth around my bag, I’d look like the pigeon woman from Home Alone, hobbling scrappily through the park.

“It feels like flying,” Anwar says of this era. “It’s like we were running, tripped a little bit, got up, and then you’re taking off. That’s my whole energy.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign.

Normally, celebrity cover stories come together in the back booth of the subject’s favorite restaurant, seemingly always on a rainy day. This one is inherently different, given the nature of the celebrity in question. To sit Hadid down for the length of a meal would be like grounding the plane, given all he’s working on at the moment. We ended up talking over a Zoom call in which he dials in from a “secret location.” I can see only the top of his head and a wooden ceiling; his whereabouts look chic and zen. Since it would be uncouth to ask for a room tour, I ask about his rings.

In the same way that everything Midas touched turned to gold, everything Hadid touches turns to silver. Literally. His inked up fingers are adorned with silver rings he made himself. His first endeavor, a jewelry line called Martyre, was his warm up to designing bespoke products with that simultaneously unpolished-and-elevated punk edge. With OBSIDIAN, the metal is hot and he’s continuing his silver spree, adorning leather belts with studs and a Chrome Hearts-esque swagger in spades. “I always loved stones since I was young, like crystals and rocks and stuff,” he says, explaining how OBSIDIAN came to be named. He cites the protective nature of of the dark stone, a naturally occurring volcanic glass, as inspiration for the line.

I ask him who he’d most like to see the Flightless bag styled on; he pauses for a moment, and then says he just wants to see it in action. “I’m excited to see it on somebody in the street. Whoever loves it and gives it that love, I’m gonna appreciate it.” The utility of the line, which includes belts, bags, heavy denim jeans, and some t-shirts (one in black, one in white, both already sold out), is important to Anwar, who refers to the pieces as “gear.”

And who better to need sexy studded gear than a burgeoning rockstar? “I want to play Glastonbury,” he says, manifesting howVanish’s next gigs. “I wanna play Coachella! You know, I’m a Cali baby!” howVanish is gearing up for a tour later this year, though they don’t have any festival spots lined up just yet. “Every single show is different. You’re chasing a special connection with people.” He does get stage fright, but only for a second. “Right when you go onstage it goes away. It’s actually just the energy you need to feel.”

There’s something mysterious about Hadid, like you’d need a bulletin board and a bunch of red yarn in order to figure him out. For example, if you search his name in TikTok, nothing comes up, like he’s been scrubbed from the app. It’s unclear whether this is by design or fate. “I naturally don’t care for it,” Anwar says of social media. “Doing things in real life is better.” At this moment, curiosity kills the cat and I have to ask: what is his screen time? When he asks me how to check, I already know it’s going to be lower than mine (8 hours on a good day). “It’s literally 3 hours. Is that low?” He tells me he only uses his phone to take “the calls,” which he says with the same vague distaste someone who hates pickles would say “the pickles.”

“If you wanna reach me, call me, you know what I’m sayin’? Like Kim Possible.”

So that’s how he does it all. Metal work, touring with his band, channeling his seemingly boundless creativity into a brand. “I’m blessed to be surrounded by people that believe in me and shit.” There’s a sense that he knows he’s reached a new cruising altitude in his career, creatively and spiritually. “I want to see everyone around me in flight. It’s time to fly, you know?”

Where he’ll go or what he’ll do next is anyone’s guess.

It’s all up in the air.