Naomi Campbell, a towering barrier-breaker in fashion and the most daring of supermodels, stands in a small hot box, put together inside a bigger, sprawling studio in north London for our cover shoot – the final one of the year. She has a hard stop at 3pm. Cover shoots are normally late-running, long-winded affairs, which stretch from the earliest morning hours to late evening. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to get to my daughter’s school,’ she explains, her voice soft and slightly hoarse from a winter cold.
Heat fans blaze an August-like warmth to suit the crisp cotton shirt and matching hot pants she wears, while the rising star photographer Quil Lemons shoots with a surgeon-like hush and precision. Wizkid plays softly from a speaker in the background as Naomi strikes a serene pose.
The lore surrounding her is larger than life. But, on set, her sense of calm and quiet is notable. Gone are the whizzing entourages one might expect to see trailing the supermodel. Instead, a small crack team of us get to work. Click, click, click. The first shot done, she slips into a white robe and slippers as stylist and ELLE UK contributing editor Georgia Medley pulls out her next look.
There’s a poetic sense of the full circle here. ‘I had my first big shoot with British ELLE when I was 15, a month before my 16th birthday. I’ll never forget it. I never forget the people involved in it,’ Naomi says, several weeks later, from her holiday travels in the Middle East. ‘Whether I’m in communication with them or not, they know I’m grateful. I remember where I come from.’
As the story has it, the model scout Beth Boldt was out for an afternoon in Covent Garden with her teenage daughter when she spotted a young Campbell, dressed in school uniform, shopping with friends. Three months later, despite her mother Valerie Morris-Campbell’s reservations, Naomi was on a plane to New Orleans for her first shoot with ELLE. ‘My mother gave her consent and off I went,’ she says. ‘I can recall it clearly. Most of my pictures in the beginning were where I was jumping, leaping and smiling. They knew that I came from a dance background, so they often wanted me to do those types of poses. And, you know, I really didn’t know how to model,’ she says.
A world of change has happened since then. Life, fame and motherhood. Naomi has appeared on no less than 25 global covers of ELLE since that first shoot. Meanwhile, I grew up in Virginia purchasing those magazines. To my eye, she represented the glamorous world of fashion, exciting British subcultures, and a scintillating new kind of celebrity. Who could forget the images of crowds screaming for the supermodels with a zeal normally reserved for boy bands? Or the sight of Naomi, Cindy, Lindy and Christy lip-syncing to George Michael’s ‘Freedom! ’90’? Or Naomi standing arm-in-arm with Nelson Mandela in South Africa?
But she also embodied an empowered, unbossed and unapologetic picture of Black womanhood that I rarely saw in luxury fashion. I’d go out of my way to buy any issue I saw her grace the cover of. She represented a whole host of things. And still does.
Now, she’s a mother, juggling two children and an enormous career. Naomi announced the arrival of her daughter, whose name she keeps private, in 2021 at the age of 51. Last year, she had a son at 53. She has also recently taken up fashion design, having created a new collection for BOSS, and, in June, will be the subject of an exhibition at the V&A, simply titled 'Naomi'. The retrospective of her almost 40-year career will be the first exhibition of its kind. Professionally, 2024 promises to be Naomi’s biggest year yet.
However, I get the strong sense that the role of mother is the work that most keeps her on her toes. Beyond the icon status, outsized celebrity and poreless skin, she’s a woman trying to leave work in time to get to the school gate.
When we later play phone-tag during her holiday travels from Kenya to Dubai, she sends a text that reads: ‘We’ve arrived. Will put my babies to bed and call you.’
Fashion is a famously challenging world for mothers, with its year-long calendar full of destination shows, late dinners and recurring runway weeks. Many in the industry say that working in fashion is more like a lifestyle than a job. And for those in high-powered roles, this can take on an even deeper meaning. But Naomi – who has long had to advocate for herself, whether fighting for the same treatment and pay as her white peers or speaking up for greater diversity in the industry at large – has no problem asserting her right to prioritise her family.
‘Things change when you become a mother, and I’m no different from any other parent,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to make decisions in my life. Since my daughter started going to school, there have been things I’ve been offered that I’d love to do and would if I could. But I have to be there on the first day my daughter is starting school. That is very important. I have to be there to pick her up. My children come first,’ she says. ‘And my daughter is really cool. She understands mommy works. But, for me, it’s important to be there, especially when I tell her, "I’m coming to get you." If I say I’m there, I’m there. And in friendships, if I say I’m there, I’m there’.
The jump from one to two children can be a jolt to the system, particularly the Calpol years, when one unexpected curveball – a fever, for instance, or any of the manifold cold and flu bugs that seem to live in classrooms – can throw an entire day into upheaval. Naomi is quick to acknowledge the privilege of having a team of support, which means she doesn’t have to slow down too much: ‘I have help, and my mother as well. But I’ve been able to juggle it and, you know, take my kids with me when I travel.’
Travel, her love of it and her peripatetic lifestyle inspired her new BOSS collection, a tight mix of practical day and workwear with just the right amount of glamour, launching this month.
How does it feel to be stepping into the role of designer after having worked as model and muse for so long? ‘I loved it. I’d like to do more of it, because it’s something I enjoy,’ she says.
Her collection is landing at a time when there is much discussion about the decreasing number of women designers atop fashion’s biggest brands, a debate that gained steam when Sarah Burton stepped down from Alexander McQueen. Campbell memorably and tearfully walked in the designer’s final show in Paris last year. ‘That was emotional,’ she recalls. ‘Sarah is not only a great friend of mine, she’s a real talent. You know, we don’t have many female designers… It would be nice if there could be a change in that direction, too. It needs to be equal. I will always stand up for Sarah and the female designers I’ve worked with, like Donatella.’
As for Campbell’s work, she says there is something for everyone. ‘I wanted to make things that were comfortable – wearable things that also help your body,’ she explains of the 40-piece capsule. There are relaxed knit co-ords in luxe cashmere, nupro and jersey for long-haul flights and easy suiting for the meetings scheduled to take place upon arrival. ‘It’s chic and easy. Elegant. A very simple collection, but with very good quality.’
Her own travel uniform consists of ‘body-hugging, compression-like things’ to prevent bloating. And yes, she is still as careful about in-flight hygiene as ever – five years after a video of her airport routine, involving plastic gloves, masks and a multitude of antibacterial wipes, went viral. ‘I was called all sorts of names. I’ve been wearing a mask for 20 something years. I’ve been cleaning the plane for as long as I know,’ she says of the prescient clip she posted to her YouTube channel a year before the coronavirus outbreak.
The following year, she was photographed in a full hazmat suit on a flight from LA to New York. ‘Covid is a very serious thing and we lost a lot of lives. And it turned the world upside down and put us at a standstill. So it wasn’t for fun. There was no fun about it. My routine is psychological. It’s for me to feel comfortable. It may be extreme to others, but it’s not extreme to me,’ she says, before adding that her precaution is also down to self-preservation and pure pragmatism. ‘When I travel, we have to be ready to go when we get to our destination for work. We can’t afford to get sick. And so all the prevention measures I take is to maintain my body. To be good enough to get off that plane and to work,’ she says.
She adds that she’s learned to embrace self-care: ‘I try to eat well. I’ve been boxing on and off for many years to condition my body. I’m not perfect by any means, but I do what I can.’ She’s also a believer in prayer. ‘That’s a big thing for me. As you know, I’m in recovery and I take that very seriously. And no, I don’t miss alcohol in my life. I feel better without it. Anywhere that’s a place of holiness or spirituality, I will pray. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a plane, I will pray wherever and whenever I feel,’ she says.
Born in Lambeth, Naomi spent part of her childhood in Italy with her mother Morris-Campbell, who worked as a professional modern dancer. She later moved in with relatives back in London while her mother toured Europe. It’s clear her mother’s own experiences travelling and charting a course for herself as a performer inspired a limitless sense of possibility in Campbell: ‘I want my kids to see the world and get to understand different cultures like my mum did with me.’
Beyond her mother, the women Campbell looked up to most growing up were titans: ‘Josephine Baker, Iman, Tina Turner, Bethann Hardison and Diana Ross. Women that stood in their strength and power, putting out their artistry and staying true to themselves. I respect people who have integrity and speak their truth – whether you want to hear it or not,’ she says.
Hardison, a former model and agent, first met Campbell at the age of 14, when Boldt asked her to look out for the young teenager. She says the model has never been afraid to speak up for herself, a useful trait for a girl coming of age in an industry when sexism and racism were rampant. ‘I used to always call her my Buffalo Soldier, because she was fighting on arrival, fighting for survival,’ Hardison says. ‘She didn’t take no stuff. She was always aware of self-value. I think it’s innate.’ Hardison is widely celebrated for her decades-long work leading movements to diversify the fashion industry, well before the idea became popular. Her life and work is chronicled in the documentary Invisible Beauty, for which Campbell is credited as an executive producer.
‘I’ve never looked at myself as a friend to Naomi. I look at myself as a mother. I was busy being a guide. I got her through things. If she got upset about something or didn’t agree with the money she was being offered, she’d come and tell me. I became her American mother,’ she says. ‘She fights for herself. Right or wrong. She has always stood strong for herself.’
When Hardison founded the Black Girls Coalition in 1988, to celebrate the new wave of Black models breaking through the notoriously homogeneous industry and challenge the advertising world to diversify their campaigns, she called on Naomi and a group of her peers. There’s a famous photo of them all together at a press conference: Naomi, Roshumba, Tyra Banks, Veronica Webb, Gail O’Neill, and more, alongside their mentors Hardison and the iconic model Iman. ‘What was so nice about it was to see these models in this competitive industry and to show that they had a common interest. I was educating them to show them what they could do,’ Hardison says on a call from her home in Mexico.
Naomi, meanwhile, says Hardison helped her to understand the power in pushing for change. ‘Bethann gave me the base. She always made me feel part of the journey of things that she was trying to change and improve. All of us models in that picture in 1988. That helped me too. It helped me to hear other people’s stories and for us to come together. For me to hear at 18 that I wasn’t alone. And that I had Iman and Gail and Karen and Veronica. All of us that were in that picture, we all had been through something similar and shared a common thread. And that sense of unity and understanding and sharing made me feel like, “OK, I’m not alone.” Even if I felt alone in some of the work situations I was in, I wasn’t alone, because I had a place I could go to and share.’
These ideas – of female empowerment, self-actualisation and truth-telling – underpin the projects that promise to define Naomi’s big year. She has launched Emerge, a fashion charity to nurture the next generation of design talent across Africa, the diaspora and the Middle East, an initiative that will create apprenticeships and after-school and university programmes. Meanwhile, our cover shoot is full of talents Campbell has supported, from menswear designer Bianca Saunders to the rising young talent Torishéju, whose debut show Campbell walked in, in Paris last October.
Torishéju says Naomi’s involvement was game-changing. ‘The response was overwhelming. It has made an enormous impact on the brand and me personally, and opened doors I never imagined walking through.’
‘That’s what this is all about,’ Naomi says later. ‘We got an opportunity. So we have to give an opportunity. Yes. It is really simple. You will always have your top luxury brands; we know that. But you still need that new wave coming in.’
There is the sense that she is finally authoring her own narrative, wrestling it away from decades of headlines written about her, beginning with her exhibition. ‘People see me in pictures, they see me on the runway. But there may be certain things about me they don’t know,’ she says. ‘I want people to walk away from [the exhibition] learning something about me that they didn’t know before. I want it to feel intimate. So I’m trying to make it feel personal, as much as I can,’ she explains.
It will cover almost 40 years of her career through the fashion she wore and the designers and photographers she worked with, spanning her close relationship with Azzedine Alaïa, a designer she famously regarded as an adoptive-father figure, to the gowns she’s worn on the red carpet. Campbell has worked closely with the museum’s team on the curation and describes it as being a pinch-me moment. ‘It has definitely been an emotional process, especially seeing and touching the clothes I haven’t seen for God knows when and just remembering all the memories that came with them. And to see the workmanship and know that they stood the test of time. The journey of the clothes has been a great reminder of the great creatives I got to work with in my life.’
The exhibition also serves as a reminder that Campbell is as relevant as she’s ever been. And, at 53 years old, she’s a prolific runway walker who still has the power to transfix a room and make an audience full of famously stone-faced, sunglassed insiders perk up with delight. I ask her, why continue to do it? She has nothing to prove at this point. ‘I love, love, love fashion,’ she says warmly and emphatically, with each ‘love’ said in crescendo. ‘I love that I’m still given the opportunity to perform my job. I love creativity. I love seeing people who are passionate about what they do, who care about what they do. I want to work with great talents, and new talent. And I love learning. We’re never done!’
The Naomi x BOSS collection launches in stores February 15.
This article appears in the March issue of ELLE UK, out on newsstands on February 1.
