Fashion designer turns Gigi Hadid into an ‘illegal alien’ for a campaign and people are furious

Gigi Hadid might be one of today's biggest "It Girls", but that doesn't mean that the projects she takes part in are always good for her reputation.

Like the latest drama she's been caught up in – wherein fashion designer Jeremy Scott styled Gigi into an "illegal alien" for a photoshoot - which did not impress the internet, to say the least.

Jeremy Scott, who is the creative director for Italian luxury fashion house, Moschino, uploaded an image of Gigi to his Instagram to tease a new campaign he produced. The model wears a retro look, including an orange wool dress and a black hat, and her skin had been painted blue. The original caption read "THE ONLY THING ILLEGAL ABOUT THIS ALIEN IS HOW GOOD SHE LOOKS !", which people really took issue with.

Credit: Instagram / @gigihadid

It appeared extremely tone-deaf in relation to Trump's recent immigration policies, which has seen families be torn apart. People commented on the post writing, "Delete that caption. Right now", "Ignorant caption", and "This is really tasteless regardless of your point."

Others took to Twitter to pronounce their distaste.

Quite soon after posting the original caption, Jeremy noticed the backlash he was receiving, and updated it to explain his "reasoning" behind the "illegal alien" campaign.

"ALIEN NATION ! @gigihadid STARS IN MY NEW @moschino CAMPAIGN," he wrote. "WHAT IS AN 'ALIEN?' THE CONCEPT OF MY AD CAMPAIGN IS TO BRING ATTENTION TO THE US ADMINISTRATION’S HARSH STANCE TOWARDS ‘ILLEGAL ALIENS.’ I PAINTED THE MODELS IN MY SHOW AND THIS CAMPAIGN AS A WAY TO OPEN A DISCUSSION ON WHAT EXACTLY AN 'ALIEN' IS - ARE THEY ORANGE BLUE YELLOW GREEN? DOES THIS MATTER? THEY ARE OUR FRIENDS, NEIGHBOURS, CO WORKERS, RELATIVES AND PEOPLE WE LOVE."

Jeremy claims to have made a comment about the new immigration policies on purpose, highlighting how "harsh" they are. The all-caps nature of the caption makes it pretty strange to read, but it's the text format that Jeremy has adopted across his Instagram.

In any case, it seems people responded to the updated caption much more kindly, writing things like, "LOVE the meaning of this stand for what you believe in, keep CHANGING THE GAME", as well as, "Brilliant! Love it. Go you for using your platform to take a stand and gain attention using the art form of fashion!"

Gigi herself commented on the issue, re-posting the image to her Instagram stories with the caption, "when aliens took over the White House" and a winky face.

Credit: Instagram / @gigihadid

Credit: Instagram / @gigihadid

It's understandable that some may consider the campaign contentious - as it uses a political issue that is devastating families across the nation as "inspiration" for a commercial fashion project - but, it seems that Jeremy and Gigi had good intentions, and were simply hoping to spread awareness about the immigration crisis through their platform.