Naomi Campbell has unexpectedly become a fashion historian.
Before doing a deep dive into Campbell's new passion project — her YouTube show, No Filter with Naomi — it’s important to get some context on the supermodel’s own role and place in fashion history. First and foremost, Campbell is arguably the greatest runway model of all time. If you go to Google Images and search “queen of the runway” or “best runway walk of all time,” the first photos that come up are pictures of Campbell. And as you scroll through the results, Campbell appears more than any other model, strutting down the runway for the past 30 years.
In the early 1990s, when supermodels were more famous than movie stars, Campbell was at the top, part of the “Big Five” who appeared on the January 1990 Vogue cover and in George Michael’s “Freedom!” music video. Unlike many of the other models from that time, Campbell, who turns 50 later this month, can still be regularly found on the catwalk, blending right on in with models half her age (she walked in Yves Saint Laurent and Versace shows last year).
Back in April, Campbell launched a YouTube mini-series called No Filter with Naomi. The talk show consists of her chatting with a wide array of famous friends, and opposed to similar homemade content by celebrities during quarantine, like John Krasinski’s Some Good News, Campbell's show isn’t striving to be the most polished program — and that’s exactly what makes it great.
No Filter is a simplified down to its most enjoyable core: notable people having personal, honest dialogue with one another. In No Filter’s best moments, it feels like you're eavesdropping on two longtime friends catching up.
Over the course of 15 episodes, Campbell talks with the likes of Marc Jacobs, Cindy Crawford, Adut Akech, Christy Turlington, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Nicole Richie and Ashley Graham, to name a few. Because the guests span across generations, their collective stories paint a well-rounded picture of the fashion industry from the 80s through to today — and inadvertently, Campbell has created something fascinating: an oral history of the modern fashion industry.
With her contemporaries like Turlington and Crawford, Campbell talks about the impact of the designers (Azzedine Alaïa), agents (Eileen Ford) and photographers (David LaChapelle) and lesser known folks behind the scenes who shaped their generation. With her younger friends, the dialogue turns to the ways in which the industry has — and hasn't — changed for dark-skinned models like Akech and plus-sized models like Graham.
Campbell may seem like an unlikely historian, but if you watch the show for even just a few minutes, it’s immediately apparent just how important history and the history-makers are to her. If someone is a “first,” Campbell is quick to note it and eager to discuss it, like in her conversation with Aketch about being the first model to appear on five Vogue covers simultaneously and in talking with Graham about being the first plus-sized model to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated (of course, Campbell’s own trailblazing accomplishments as the first black model on the cover of French Vogue and TIME magazine get discussed, too).
The interviews end up looking at fashion from an intersectional perspective, hitting on a wide array of surprising topics, from discussing Judaism with Karlie Kloss to the invasion of Iraq with P. Diddy to addiction and recovery with Marc Jacobs. As disparate as the topics may sound, Campbell somehow brings it all back to fashion. What makes these interviews feel like a collective oral history versus just an interview show is Campbell’s ability to connect themes between the past and present. That strength feels maybe most evident in the moments when she discusses the history of social media and reality TV with her guests.
In her conversation with Paris Hilton, they make a compelling case for The Simple Life and Hilton’s “famous-for-being-famous” brand of notoriety as having paved the way for the Kardashians and Bravo’s countless Housewives shows, the launchpads for many of today’s most famous models like Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. Reality TV also comes up with Crawford as they reminisce about House Of Style and how it was the first show of it’s kind to bring TV crews behind closed doors with celebrities.
As you watch more and more episodes of No Filter, you start to see patterns in the people and events that loom large in the lives of Campell’s guests. A few names and events come up repeatedly, including: the epicness of Tierry Mugler fashion shows, the kindness of Giovanni Versace and the education so many received from photographer Herb Ritts (who shot the infamous Vogue image).
However, the most prominent theme — especially when it comes to Naomi, personally — is that this oral history is really a story about a chosen family. Campbell refers to Aketch as “daughter,” Azzedine Alaïa as “papa,” and Turlington’s relatives as her “American family.” Even just the rampant references to people by their first name — Steven (Maisel), Lee (Alexander McQueen), Anna (Wintour) — feel evident of how intimate all these relationships are. That seems, in no small part, due to how young so many people are when entering the industry. Nearly every guest has known Campbell since she was a teenager, or vice-versa.
To some people, Campbell is known as much for her 90s supermodel glam stardom as she is for throwing phones at assistants. In No Filter, though, she’s only a positive presence and clearly loved by many people in her industry. The hot-tempered reputation that’s followed her through her professional career isn’t visible on No Filter — in fact, it might be the only thing filtered out.
Ari Saperstein a writer and producer at a Los Angeles radio station. As a freelance writer, he's written for outlets like New York Magazine, InStyle, The Boston Globe and LAist. Follow him on Twitter @ari_saperstein.
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