Naomi’s impact on fashion

LONDON — Naomi? Really? When the Victoria & Albert Museum announced that an exhibit was going to be devoted to Naomi Campbell, the British supermodel from the ’90s who has the longest-running career that spans 40 years and counting, not a few eyebrows were raised about the tribute given to a fashion model in the venerable institution that normally features artists, designers and photographers.

But Naomi is not just any model, and the fact that the whole world knows her just by her first name is proof that she has made a significant cultural impact. Hence, the title of the exhibit sees no need to include her last name: “Naomi: In Fashion.” Her extraordinary career intersects with the best of high fashion. “She is recognized worldwide as a supermodel, activist, philanthropist, and creative collaborator, making her one of the most prolific and influential figures in contemporary culture,” says V&A curator Sonnet Stanfill.

It’s also about time that due credit was given to models for their skill and contribution to the fashion industry. Traditionally, models were considered mere instruments in displaying clothes. They were even called “mannequins,” replacing the articulated wooden ones that originated from the 18th-century Dutch manikin used by artists. Even up to 1925, a New York Times headline, “Berlin Society Girls Work as Mannequins” used the term for live models in a fashion salon. 

But designers know that their pieces do not work without the right model, choosing the perfect ones for fittings at their cabine, where they are part of the designing process as the dress evolves

Jean-Paul Gaultier attests how “I would not have done collections like that if there were not people like her. Clothes are nothing without someone inside who knows how to move.”

Dolce & Gabbana credits Naomi for “giving us the possibility of experimenting without constraints. On one hand, her character is undeniably a signature. On the other, she is like a canvas on which we can express our creativity without limits.”

The Italian designing duo was initially resistant to employ her during a time when white models dominated. It was her fellow supermodel friends, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista, who came to her defense, telling them, “If you don’t use Naomi, you don’t get us.” 

Naomi’s coup as the first black cover girl for Vogue France in 1988 only became a reality when her ally, Yves Saint Laurent, threatened to pull out all advertising from the magazine. She would continue to fight against racism, joining the Black Girls Coalition in 1989 and campaigning for the Diversity Coalition since 2013, as well as teaming up with Nelson Mandela to fight for social justice. 

Born in south London in 1970 to Jamaican-born dancer Valerie Morris, Naomi never met her father who abandoned her mother when she was four months pregnant, taking “Campbell” from her stepfather. She inherited a Chinese heritage from her maternal grandmother whose surname was Ming. Spending her early years in Rome, where her mother worked as a modern dancer, she had an affinity for dance and theater, attending the Barbara Speake Stage School and Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. 

At age eight, she came out in Bob Marley’s music video, Is This Love and tap-danced in 1983 in Culture Club’s I’ll Tumble 4 Ya video. She had intended to be a dancer but in 1986, while still a ballet student at Italia Conti, she was discovered by Synchro Model Agency’s Beth Boldt while shopping at Covent Garden — changing her life forever. By April, right before her 16th birthday, she appeared on the cover of British Elle. 

Her entry to the fashion world came at just the right time when it was on the cusp of change. By the early 1990s, the term “supermodel” or model-turned-international celebrity, was widely used to refer to Naomi and her peers. She credits Thierry Mugler as instrumental in establishing this elite group: “He wanted all of us at the same time in the same show. So he started making deals,” which included a round-trip Concorde ticket and talent fees offered only to a select few.

Fashion had become mass entertainment and Naomi was at the center of it all as her talents were championed by leading designers like John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, Gianni Versace, Vivienne Westwood and Azzedine Alaïa with whom she had a close professional and personal relationship. A special section is devoted to the Tunisian-born, Paris-based designer who considered her sculptural physique as the “perfect body” which inspired much of his work. 

The exhibit features over 100 looks and accessories that she modeled, many owned by Naomi herself, comprising a virtual history of fashion from the late ‘80s to the present. She became famous for her inimitable presence on the catwalk while her work with leading photographers created some of the era’s most memorable images like her stopping traffic in Manhattan by Mario Sorrenti and wearing a leopard print outfit as she raced a real leopard, by Jean-Pual Goude.

She managed to always make the headlines, proclaiming once, “I know my value. If I walk for you, you’ll get your press.” Vivienne Westwood sure did, in that famous 1993 catwalk stumble of Naomi wearing the designer’s nine-inch platforms, immortalized in the exhibit with the shoes acquired by the V&A. The media frenzy was so intense that other designers asked her to “fall” at their shows soon afterwards, but she refused. Later in her career, media coverage would not be as benign, publicizing her diva ways: Throwing a mobile phone at her maid in 2007 and physically and verbally abusing British Airways staff for a missing bag in 2008.