She was the first Black model to appear on the cover of French Vogue and a muse to designers including Gianni Versace.
She has lip-synced in the video for George Michael’s hit Freedom! ’90 and been name-checked in a Beyoncé song. Now, four decades after her career began, Naomi Campbell is once again making history.
On Thursday, the V&Ain London announced that its next big fashion exhibition will be dedicated to Campbell, marking the first time a model will be the focus of an exhibition at the museum.
Past record-breaking V&A spectacles have been dedicated to the likes of David Bowie and Christian Dior, while a retrospective of Coco Chanel has sold out.
Naomi, with a first-name only title, hints at the magnitude of Campbell’s fame but beyond this, the museum’s recognition cements her shift from catwalk model to cultural icon.
Sonnet Stanfill, a senior curator at the V&A, said: “She is the exemplar in the field of fashion modelling, but she has also been at the forefront of expanding our understanding of what a model can be.”
Alongside designer pieces from Campbell’s own wardrobe, her close friend, the outgoing editor in chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, is curating a selection of her greatest fashion photography while another section will spotlight her philanthropic work.
Speaking to the Guardian, Enninful said: “I knew from the day we met, Naomi had something different. She is magnetic when you see her model, but she always had such big ambitions. Her charity work, her creativity – they’re all testament to what a tour de force she is.”
Scouted at 15, Campbell’s stratospheric rise from south London schoolgirl to one of the world’s most famous models is the stuff of legend.
Now 53 and a mother of two, her profile continues to flourish. In fact, it has never been higher as she continues to defy industry norms and a culture fixated on youth.
Forget the Kardashians, it was Campbell who made headlines in September when she emerged on the Dolce & Gabbana catwalk in a sheer slip dress. She made a surprise appearance alongside Annie Lennox at Vogue World London, then popped up again on the front row at Fendi and Burberry.
Last week, Sarah Burton chose Campbell to close her final show as the creative director for Alexander McQueen, resulting in a viral video of the model wiping away a tear as she left the runway. Even celebrities half Campbell’s age look to her for inspiration. On Tuesday, the Euphoria star Zendaya wore a gold Louis Vuitton top, first seen on Campbell in 2004.
This is not a renaissance, we are in the era of a Naomissance. Osman Ahmed, the fashion features director at i-D magazine, describes Campbell as “a Teflon-coated survivor”.
“I think what adds to her allure is that she’s a Black girl from Streatham who made it big – no famous parents, the only woman of colour in shows and campaigns for decades,” he said.
The latest surge in Campbell’s popularity is bookended by an Apple TV documentary, which tells the story of her and her supermodel contemporaries’ rise to fame; and TikTok, where a new generation fascinated by 90s nostalgia has discovered the idol.
Users of the platform make video montages dedicated to that walk and roundups of the best of her 600-plus magazine covers. On eBay, original covers fetch anything from £16 to £240 or more.
Even Campbell’s more controversial moments, including her links to alleged “blood diamonds” and arriving to community service shifts in couture, have been repurposed by Gen Z as memes.
“She is the personification of self-actualisation which is wildly aspirational for not only those in the fashion community but throughout the world,” said Kyle Hagler, the founder of the brand consultancy No Smoking and a former modelling agent. “She is not only a conduit for others’ expressions of creativity but she is the driver of a lot of the movements that we have seen in fashion.”
Campbell has been instrumental in launching the careers of fledgling designers, such as Lee McQueen and Virgil Abloh, and models including Adut Akech, who refers to Campbell as her “second mother”.
But it is an influence that now transcends fashion. Drawing upon her own experiences of racism, including being paid less than her white peers, Campbell is an advocate for inclusivity. “Diversity is not a trend,” she said on BBC Two’s Newsnight programme in 2019.
An “honorary granddaughter” to Nelson Mandela, in 2018 Campbell addressed mourners at the funeral of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. She has interviewed the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for Vogue, and last week, she was pictured at a dinner with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Today, Campbell has the unique alchemy of resonating with not only generation X, who grew up alongside her and wield significant spending power, but generation Z, a burgeoning group of consumers who brands are keen to foster.
Recently, she was appointed as an ambassador to Boss, a spinoff brand from Hugo Boss that this month launched a billboard campaign featuring Campbell alongside the TikToker Khaby Lame.
Nadia Kokni, a senior vice-president of global marketing at Hugo Boss, said: “Her positive spirit and energy are something that really resonates with our brand and our consumersn … There is no one else on the planet like her.”
The highs and lows
Highs
2007: Campbell wears a sequinned Dolce & Gabbana couture gown for her final day of community service work at a Manhattan sanitation unit.
2017: The ultimate model reunion at Versace’s spring-summer 2018 show.
2022: Introducing her baby daughter to the world via the cover of British Vogue.
Lows
1993: Taking a tumble in Vivienne Westwood’s 12-inch heels.
1994: The release of her debut novel, Swan, which she didn’t actually write.
2010 “This is a big inconvenience for me,” Campbell said while testifying at the war crimes trial of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
