By: David Masello
A landmark exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, along with a new book by Rizzoli, reveals the garments, the life, and the ongoing legacy of Naomi Campbell.
When Sonnet Stanfill, a senior curator of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (aka, the V&A), approached Naomi Campbell with the idea of mounting an exhibition devoted to her, which would be accompanied by a Rizzoli book, both entitled Naomi in Fashion: Naomi Campbell, he and several other contributors opted for an unusual direction. They left the supermodel in charge of curation.
The result, the exhibition and its attendant book, is as much an introspection at Campbell’s 40-plus-year career, as it is a kind of visual biography of her and women’s high fashion ever since she walked into, and onto, the scene in the mid 1980s. Readers and exhibition-goers get to see many of the gowns and accessories she wore, as well as the less than glam childhood black and white photos of her, and also the different looks captured by the best photographers of the era—Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, David Bailey, among them. We get to see how an ordinary, albeit beautiful, teenager became an extraordinary woman.
She was spotted at 15 years old by Beth Boldt, a model agent who had an eye for recognizing the physique coupled with talent. Right time, right place, right person, right look. So adept was Campbell at donning the garments and showing them to their best advantage that within two years she was gracing the covers of Vogue and putting on garments by the likes of John Galliano, Gianni Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood, and Yves Saint Laurent. As Edward Enninful, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, says in the book, “As anyone who has worked with her knows when Naomi arrives at a shoot, she is there to work.”
While both the book and exhibition are about the glamour that Campbell embodies, and the industry as a whole, there is some off-the-runway Campbell drama that gets dissected. Perhaps it’s something about the fame and adoration that goes with being a supermodel that can lead to some less than fashionable behavior, in her case a few charges of assault (to a housekeeper, an assistant, a paparazzo photographer, even two London police officers) that earned her some time doing community service. The book and show reveal the very garment she decided to wear on her final day of community service—a Dolce & Gabbana gown adorned with silver sequins, to be exact.
But Campbell is also someone to be lauded. She was brave enough to move to New York at 17—and room with fellow supermodel Christy Turlington for a spell, and then become friends with industry titans Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui. She later forged a special friendship with the now late Azzedine Alaia, the Tunisian-born, Paris-residing designer to whom she would become so close that she called him Papa. A part of the exhibition poignantly recounts their professional and friendship bond.
In 1988 as the first Black woman to be featured on the cover of Paris Vogue Campbell not only promoted clothes, but also causes. The book and exhibition show off her relentless activism on behalf of Black models. As Stanfill recounts in the book, for which he is cited as the chief author, “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.”
While only a select number of women get to wear the fashion pieces Campbell has made shine, her image in them endures. Although Campbell suggests that her career was not about her, but rather about the clothes, the book and exhibition prove her wrong. It was about both – and still is.
“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.”
