{"id":3383486,"date":"2026-09-04T18:15:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/3383486\/model\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T18:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:15:39","slug":"the-supermodel-who-got-bullied-out-of-the-fashion-industry-gemma-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/3383486\/model\/","title":{"rendered":"The Supermodel Who Got Bullied Out of the Fashion Industry | Gemma Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x54XhcUBTq8?modestbranding=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\nGemma Ward was the face of the 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>Those huge eyes. That almost alien, doll-like face. Prada wanted her exclusively. Vogue couldn\u2019t stop putting her on covers. Calvin Klein gave her a million-dollar fragrance deal. And suddenly, an entire generation of models started looking like they had stepped out of some slightly unsettling fairy tale.<\/p>\n<p>Fashion was obsessed with her.<br \/>\nUntil\u2026 it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Because the moment Gemma started growing out of the teenage image the industry had fallen in love with, the conversation around her became unbelievably cruel.<\/p>\n<p>Her body was dissected. Headlines mocked her. Fashion insiders questioned whether she should still be booked. Paparazzi literally tracked her down on a private beach.<\/p>\n<p>And all of this was happening while Gemma was dealing with something far more devastating behind the scenes: the sudden death of Heath Ledger.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, one of the biggest models in the world just\u2026 disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>No runway. No endless campaigns. No fashion-week madness.<\/p>\n<p>Just gone.<\/p>\n<p>So in this video, we\u2019re getting into the rise, disappearance, and eventual comeback of Gemma Ward \u2014 from the muddy fourteen-year-old who accidentally stumbled into modeling, to Prada\u2019s new obsession, the birth of the doll-face era, the brutal body-shaming that followed her, and the full-circle runway moment that brought her back years later.<\/p>\n<p>Because looking back at Gemma\u2019s story now, I genuinely can\u2019t help thinking\u2026 she really deserved better.<\/p>\n<p>Anywayyy, grab something to drink because fashion history has once again managed to be glamorous, iconic and deeply depressing at the exact same time \ud83d\ude2d<\/p>\n<p>And as always, I\u2019d love to know what you think: Did the fashion industry fail Gemma Ward? And has it actually changed since then?<\/p>\n<p>\u2661 Subscribe for more deep dives into supermodels, fashion icons, scandals, forgotten faces, and the darker stories hiding behind the pretty pictures.<\/p>\n<p>#GemmaWard #FashionHistory #Supermodels #2000sFashion #Prada #Vogue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gemma Ward was the face of the 2000s. Those huge eyes. That almost alien, doll-like face. Prada wanted her exc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3383487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[627838],"tags":[2074216,1292537,1292538,835724,30468,1382072,15270,100285,667169,1913937,732953,1839456,677824,987653,725865,30471,25450,640653,699374,2074215,627860,1839459,630652,1161670,17328,647295,635113],"class_list":["post-3383486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-model","tag-2000s-models","tag-90s-fashion","tag-90s-supermodel","tag-90s-supermodels","tag-catwalk","tag-chanel-show","tag-fashion","tag-fashion-show","tag-gemma-ward","tag-gemma-ward-runway","tag-grace-coddington","tag-gucci-1995-fashion-show","tag-haute-couture","tag-high-fashion","tag-karl-lagerfeld","tag-modeling","tag-models","tag-runway-walk","tag-shalom-harlow","tag-slavic-doll","tag-supermodel","tag-supermodel-fashion-show","tag-supermodels","tag-victoria-secret-fashion-show","tag-vogue","tag-vogue-magazine","tag-635113"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3383487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}