(London) 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 Museum
Naomi in Fashion traces forty years of the career of this model born in London in 1970, with dozens of looks that have marked the history of fashion.
The choice of the very famous Victoria
“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 when she was 15, an officer 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 to get Naomi Campbell to appear on the cover of French Vogue in 1988. “God bless Yves,” she said of him on one of the signs placed at the start of the exposure.
The designer “really helped women of color and he changed the course of my career,” she says, standing next to a feather dress worn in the fall/winter 1987 show, her first for Yves Saint Laurent.
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 certain item of clothing,” says the commissioner.
She was able to dig into her personal collection, including accessories, 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 is 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 […] raise my head.” She arrived, looking like a queen, in a Dolce evening dress
In 1988, she joined a campaign group to ensure that black models were paid the same. Since then, diversity has taken over the catwalks.
At 54, Naomi Campbell continues to show, most recently for Burberry.
The exhibition ends with her tips for “walking like Naomi” and a podium for practicing. “Shoulder back”, move to the music and let the arms swing naturally and of course “focus on the camera”.
