If you don’t need to be able to sing and dance to star in a musical, and win an Oscar for the role, you don’t need to be a photographer to shoot an ad campaign

Fashion has always been about chums. The more sociable you are, the more likely you’ll get into everyone’s good books. You are not only a friend to designers, their friends, stylists, make-up artists, hairdressers, fellow models, and just about anyone who matters in the industry; you’re also a friend to the world. Social media makes sure of that.

Social media is also where you launch your career. Gigi Hadid and pal Kendall Jenner have exploited social media well. They have not only used it to kick-start, but advanced their profession. Now, Gigi Hadid has taken it one step further. Her Instagram posts have become the basis for an ad campaign. Or, if online Harper’s Bazaar is to be believed, “The model stepped behind the camera to shoot the Spring 2017 Versus Versace campaign.”

Model-turns-photographer: how refreshing! Ms Hadid is, of course, not the first Instagirl to lens fashion shoots. Her BFF Ms Jenner has already shot an editorial (including the cover) for Love magazine. The jury’s out on whether that’s any good, but one thing is clear: the pictures do not look any different from entries in the shooter’s IG page. And that, too, can be said of the Ms Hadid’s photos for Versus, which features boyfriend Zayn Malik (a Versace collaborator) and Adwoa Aboah. Like everything else you see on IG, they will be forgotten tomorrow.

You will forget because these are photos you’ve seen before: a couple of beautiful people bored out of their wits in a not particularly attractive room (here, celebrity-magnet Chateau Marmont). These are individuals behaving naturally in their natural habitat, but no, these do not Juergen Teller make.

Why does Versace need advertising that looks like Ms Hadid’s IG posts? Why can’t they just pay her to upload selfies of her and her gang in Versace in both their accounts? Is the iPhone camera to be blamed? Is traditional studio photography dead? Has Mario Testino become too expensive, or too overused? Is there a shortage of professional photographers?

And you thought immigrants are out to steal your job!

Photo: instagram/gigihadid