One of them: Naomi Campbell is unrivaled in fashion

When Naomi Campell hit the red carpet in Cannes last month, it was something of a press release. Sure, she worked with image architect Law Roach, which was noteworthy in itself. And she looked absolutely stunning as she prepared to climb those 24 red steps. But the look suggested a story.

The supermodel selected an archival dress for this occasion. The all-black look featured alternating sheer and sequined panels and was held up by delicate pearl shoulder straps. She debuted on the Chanel runway in 1996, designed by Karl Lagerfeld and modeled by Campbell herself. Re-establishing it almost 30 years later was a direct testament to its enduring position in the fashion industry. It is a tribute to her unparalleled legacy as a model whose work is unlike some other and was created in the face of industry prejudice, including often overt racism.

“I’ve been told many times that I can’t do certain things because of the color of my skin, but I’ve never let that be an excuse – I’ve let it guide me,” Campbell said in 2018 when accepting the Fashion Icon Award, an honor bestowed on annually by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2019, she was awarded the identical title on the British Fashion Awards. “They told me I would only last 11 years, but I am here and it has been 32 years.” Five years later, she is still working and walking the catwalks of brands similar to Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Balmain. It’s all part of a legacy to be commemorated this summer in a first-of-its-kind exhibition on the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London, known simply as , which opens on June 22.

“She is like a being, a force. Someone who desires to be great,” says Bethann Hardison, the subject of the documentary, who made history as a model before becoming a modeling agent and a changemaker in the industry. Hardison met Campbell when the model was 15 and became her “second mother.” “[Her peers] have a distinct life. They grow up and move on. But for her, fashion was all the time something she was involved with in such an interesting way.

Campbell’s story has been told over and over: She was discovered as a model at age 15, and by the point she was 16, she appeared on the duvet in 1986, then booked the 1987 cover because the second black woman to land the highest spot. Then there have been covers of the magazine in 1988 (the primary black woman on the duvet of the magazine), American in 1989 (the primary black woman on the September issue) and the magazine in 1991 (the primary black model to accomplish that). She wasn’t the just one of the unique supermodels, but especially of the ability trio called “The Trinity” in the Nineties, which included Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. She was praised for her exceptional skills and there have been rumors that designers would ask her to point out their most demanding and awe-inspiring creations on the runway to provide them the eye and press they deserved.

By the top of the primary 11 years of her profession, she had achieved several milestones, becoming the primary black model to look in a Prada campaign in 1994 and opening a Prada show in 1997. However, this was only the start line for a trajectory that may appear on over 600 covers – including on the duvet of our fiftieth anniversary issue – and countless runway shows over nearly 4 many years.

“Naomi was part of the black modeling boom in the ’80s and early ’90s, there were a lot of amazing, gorgeous girls at the height of fashion” – Marcellas Reynolds, writer of the book says. “But one thing I discovered during interviews was that at that time, when Naomi really connected with the business, she opened up to other black models. Now customers who previously didn’t look at black models or only looked at light-skinned models were looking at the entire spectrum.”

“She couldn’t do everything, so she was partially responsible for the heyday,” Reynolds continues about that period in the late Eighties and early Nineties. “She almost single-handedly created the demand for black models.”

In this respect, Campbell’s influence and legacy on the fashion industry might be in comparison with the likes of Kate Moss and Gisele Bunchen. Aside from comparing them to their peers, which in some ways they’re, it ignores the proven fact that Campbell’s profession preceded each of them, and the model appeared on covers before either of them was scouted. And it is unlikely that their fight was the identical as Campbell’s.

“I always called her my Buffalo Soldier because she was always fighting to come, to survive,” Hardison says. Over the years, she has collaborated with Campbell on quite a few efforts, similar to the Black Girls Coalition and the Diversity Coalition, to drive change in the industry. According to her, the stunner all the time cared about what was happening behind the scenes. “She has that spirit.”

Naomi has long discussed her struggles in the industry. Her first French got here because Yves Saint Laurent threatened to drag promoting. She began walking on the runways of brands similar to Helmut Lang and Prada only because fellow supermodels Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington ordered that every one three be booked or none would go. And although these were steps, she missed out on huge multi-year contracts as an envoy for cosmetics and fragrances, which were provided to her by many of her contemporaries – in particular, she signed her first cosmetics contract in 2018 with Nars Cosmetics.

“These girls had the opportunity to leave the industry if they wanted, while Naomi almost had to keep working.” This is Reynolds. “You’re like Christy Turlington, who ran a Maybelline campaign for a few years, bringing in thousands and thousands of dollars, which allowed her to stop working and pursue other things in her life. I do not know if Naomi had the protection net that they’d.

So Campbell worked alongside generations of women for whom she posed as role models of possibility, amassing a legacy that has touched almost every major name in the industry. As the V&A exhibition attests, she is inextricably linked to the successes of many designers, including names similar to Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui and Zac Posen, and has also acted as muse for artists similar to Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Azzedine Alaia. No mere mannequin, she has been actively involved in the industry throughout her profession, in recent years not only mentoring models but in addition using her visibility to focus on emerging markets and African designers. And it is work that she did consciously, uniquely aware of the ability of visibility.

“This whole exhibition, it was all Naomi,” Hardison says. is the primary major exhibition dedicated to a single model and the primary on the V&A dedicated to a black woman. “I feel people have a look at it and think, ‘look what the V&A is doing for Naomi, that is great of them’, but Naomi told me she desired to do it when she was 20. She then told me: “Mom, I want to make an exhibition of the clothes I have from those years.” And now she did it.

Just a taste of the unique strength that is Naomi.