In 1988, Naomi Campbell became the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue In France. The star of the 90s catwalks, still influential, will be the first top model on Saturday to have an exhibition dedicated to the Victoria & Albert museum in London.
Naomi in fashion traces 40 years of career of this model born in London in 1970, with dozens of looks that have marked fashion history.
The choice of the very renowned Victoria & Albert, an art and design museum, to devote an exhibition to a model has been questioned. “But the greatest models are not just models,” replies curator Sonnet Stanfill. They are “a source of inspiration”.
“Naomi Campbell’s unparalleled looks and on-camera chemistry are the stuff of fashion legend,” she continues.
As with Claudia, Cindy, Christy, Linda, no need to give her name to know who we’re talking about: Naomi is one of the biggest stars of the top model era in the 90s.
As a child, she saw herself as a dancer, like her mother. But at 15, an agent spotted her outside school in Covent Garden. Two years later, she had already appeared on several fashion magazine covers and in fashion shows in New York, Milan and Paris.
Famous fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent reportedly lobbied hard for Naomi Campbell to appear on the cover of Vogue French in 1988. “May God bless Yves,” she says about him on one of the signs placed at the beginning of the exhibition.
The designer “really helped women of color and he changed the course of my career,” she explains next to a feather dress worn during the fall-winter 1987 show, her first for Yves Saint Laurent.
Fall on the podium
To build this exhibition, Sonnet Stanfill interviewed the top model for hours. “She has an incredible memory. She remembers who she was with when she wore a particular item of clothing,” says the commissioner.
She was able to dig into her personal collection, including accessories as well as photos, clothes and even her Concorde tickets between London and New York. Fashion houses took out loans.
A section is also dedicated to the great fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa, who died in 2017, with whom, from the age of 16, she lived when she was in Paris and whom she called “dad”. He found his inspiration in what he called this “perfect body”.
Magazine front pages are projected on the wall. Videos of his fashion shows for the biggest houses are broadcast.
Among the looks on display, that of Vivienne Westwood that Naomi Campbell wore in 1993, with platform shoes at least 15 centimeters high. She fell, all smiles, on the podium and the photo went around the world.
Naomi Campbell was also known for her personality, far from the good girl. In 2007, she was sentenced to five days of community service in New York for throwing her phone at an assistant.
Every morning, the paparazzi were waiting for him. “On the last day, I decided to […] looking up.” She arrived, looking like a queen, in a Dolce & Gabbana evening dress (on display at the V&A), and paraded in front of the cameras.
In 1988, she joined a group campaigning for black models to receive the same salary. Since then, diversity has won the podiums.
At 54, Naomi Campbell continues to parade, as recently for Burberry.
The exhibition ends with her advice on “walking like Naomi” and a podium for practicing. “Shoulders back”, move following the music and letting your arms down, swing naturally and of course “fix your gaze on the camera”.
