Going Dark: Naomi Campbell Walked So That Representation Can Run

If you know anything about the fashion industry, then you will know about the original supermodels of runway. Known as 'the big five’, these five women most recognisable in the world during the 90s. They include Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and, most importantly, Naomi Campbell. With their iconic haircuts, long legs, and institutionalised celebrity status, these women still dominate the industry today. Whilst they all worked hard to earn their places in the fashion industry, for Naomi Campbell, it was different – as the only black supermodel to take centre-stage in the white-dominated industry, her placement within the business had an enormous impact: “at an early age, I understood what it meant to be black. You had to be twice as good.” Campbell started her modelling career at the age of 13, when she was introduced by her mother via lessons on how to walk. By the age of 16, she was signed by Synchro [the agency] and booked internationally. Her first big campaign was with British Elle, in which Campbell was shot in New Orleans wearing prairie-style dresses. She later became the first black model to appear on the cover of British and French Vogue, creating the first stepping stones in a career that has spanned decades, broken centuries-old standards, and set new benchmarks for the industry.

Naomi Campbell in her first Vogue cover, 1989

Now, Campbell is of course known as one of the most influential and powerful supermodels in the world. She has built an empire in fashion, and set the tone for designers, models and fashion-connoisseurs who refuse to work with others who fail to meet basic levels of representation, inclusivity, and diversity. It was after her friend and mentor Yves Saint Laurent threatened to withdraw his advertisement from French Vogue if they did not feature her that Naomi was invited to star on the cover. When Campbell was on the receiving end of racial discrimination from Dolce & Gabbanna in 1997, her friends and fellow supermodels Turlington and Evangelista told them, “If you don’t use Naomi, you don’t get us.” Now, the same brands beg for Naomi to feature. Campbell was awarded the CFDA Fashion Icon Award in 2018, the Glamour Award for Outstanding Contribution, the Glamour Award for TV Personality, and the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Icon Award in 2019. She has interviewed some of the most powerful people in the world, including former president of Brazil Lula da Silva, and Russian president Vladimir Putin, and is unafraid to voice her opinions: “I’m not in any way political, but I like meeting powerful people. I like to hear about their struggles and find out what they’ve done to change their countries for the better… I often think I would have liked to have interviewed Kim Jong-il of North Korea before he died, if only to find out why he shut his country off from the rest of the world.”

Campbell has always recognised prejudice and discrimination within her industry. “I never used to say the word racism”, she states in an interview with Vogue. “I just used to say, it’s territorialism, I never wanted people to say that I used that as an excuse, that I was throwing that word out.” Famously, her relationship with model Tyra Banks has been much spoken-of and exaggerated to the extreme, with a battle for each to become the ‘token’ black model destroying their relationship and reducing them to ‘angry black woman’ stereotypes. “Oh my god, [the angry Black woman label] has been used against me so many times. I said to someone recently that it has been applied towards me so much and what for – to silence me? Well, here I am.” In a now-famous live interview between Campbell and Banks, they both discuss how the media blew up their tensions for profit. The newspapers would exaggerate their relationship, creating storylines that were fabricated to stir the pot further. Even in the interview, Tyra mentions that she still fears Naomi 'till this day', but now feels safe when talking to her one-to-one. This is a by-product of the white media, which has demonised Naomi as an aggressive woman because she knows how to stand her ground. In the interview, Campbell is patient, listens carefully and responds matter-of-factly, even when told that she had done something she hadn’t. The media has weaponised Campbell’s ability to speak back to the point where Tyra Banks, a black woman who was also demonised by the media, feared her fellow model who was in an identical situation to her. Racism causes trust issues within communities of colour, and now, their relationship can never be mended.

Campbell has graced the covers of more than 500 magazines during her career, and have been featured in campaigns for Burberry, Prada, Versace, Chanel, Dolce & Gabanna, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino. She has appeared in countless TV shows, music videos and films, including ‘The Cosby Show’, ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ Madonna’s ‘Erotica’, Bob Marley’s ‘Is This Love’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘In The Closet’. Naomi Campbell executive produced and appeared as a supermodel coach on acclaimed series ‘The Face’, in the USA where she brought in key fashion designers, photographers, publications, products and contest partners, and created unique, real life opportunities for the contestants. This is where Campbell is different from other celebrity producers. Many are labelled to be mentors who give others opportunities that would never be presented by themselves, but fall flat after the show due to their actual inability to create jobs for winners. Naomi doesn’t follow this, and mentors others to succession and excellence. Some mentee’s include Adut Akech and Alton Mason, who both now have heavily influential places in the fashion industry, and as powerful black models in still a white-dominated space, shifts the paradigm of greater black representation which can be traced to the start of Campbell’s career. Now, the response to combat racism is more direct and succinct. Naomi Campbell has helped contribute to that directness. As part of her continued journey for Black representation, Campbell has also been contributing to wide-ranging fundraising across the globe, but especially in South Africa.

Her charity work during 2018-2019 has been focused on bringing Africa to the forefront of the global fashion scene, harnessing talents of its citizens to turn the continent into a global powerhouse. In 2019, Campbell spoke at the Forbes Woman Africa Leading Women Summit, concluding that “The African continent is absolutely, one hundred and one percent, the future.” Campbell is pushing for Africa to be the next place to expand for fashion magazines including VCampbell has graced the covers of more than 500 magazines during her career, and has been featured in campaigns for the likes of Burberry, Prada, Versace, Chanel, Dolce & Gabanna, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, and Valentino. She has appeared in countless TV shows, music videos and films, including The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Madonna’s ‘Erotica’, Bob Marley’s ‘Is This Love’, and Michael Jackson’s ‘In The Closet’. Campbell also executive-produced and appeared as a supermodel coach on acclaimed series The Face in both the UK and USA, in which she brought in key fashion designers, photographers, publications, products and contest partners, to create unique, real-life opportunities for hopeful contestants. This is where Campbell differs from other celebrity producers. Many get labelled as mentors who give others opportunities that would never be offered to themselves, but fall flat after the show due to their actual inability to create jobs for winners. Naomi doesn’t follow this pattern, but mentors others to success and excellence. Some of her mentees include Adut Akech and Alton Mason, who are both now heavily influential themselves in the fashion industry. As powerful black models in a still white-dominated space, they help shift the paradigm of greater black representation that can be traced to the start of Campbell’s career. Now, the responses to combat racism are more direct, and Naomi Campbell has helped contribute to that directness. As part of her continued effort for Black representation, Campbell also contributes to wide-range fundraising across the globe, most especially in South Africa.

In particular, her charity work during 2018-19 was focused on bringing Africa to the forefront of the global fashion scene, harnessing the talents of its citizens to turn the continent into a global powerhouse. In 2019, Campbell spoke at the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit, concluding that “the African continent is absolutely, one hundred and one percent, the future.” Campbell is pushing for Africa to be the next place to expand for fashion magazines including Vogue, showcasing African fabrics and textiles and their underrepresented success. On social media, she launched her hashtag #NaomiAfrica as a way of documenting her travels while shedding light on African creatives working on important causes. Most of her work with charities is based around ending global poverty, partnering with organisations such as Global Citizen, Doctors Without Borders, and Save the Children. Campbell believes that no-one should experience extreme poverty, and her work helps tackle and end the systemic causes of poverty while encouraging sustainable economic growth in impoverished regions. As she says, “African fashion is on the rise, and it’s about time!”

Naomi Campbell and Nelson Mandela, her personal mentor and ‘honorary grandfather’.

With last year being a turning point for many fashion brands and their relationship with black communities due to the Black Lives Matter Movement, Campbell is disappointed that it has taken this long. The fashion industry must be inclusive if it is to reset in a positive way when it comes to representation, but with a major public figure like Campbell already speaking out on this subject for decades, how can we be sure that these businesses are taking genuine accountability for their contribution to prejudice and discrimination? “It’s kind of embarrassing, in 2020, to finally have all this happen, to wake up to that. You should have been doing that already,” Campbell says in an interview in Lagos. “I’ve been pushing this thing for so many years, so now, for me, there is no change. What I’m doing is exactly what I was doing before this movement started - and I’m going to continue. It’s what I believe in.” Rather than focusing on businesses and corporations, however, Campbell chooses to focus on the shifted conversation of the youth. “They have found their voices, and they are speaking out and demanding what they want. They are change.” More than ever, black models are speaking out about their experiences and discussing their treatment in the industry, from hairdressers unused to styling black hair, and CEOs finding easy fault in black models and cancelling them, to a systemic lack of opportunities. Young people are speaking their minds and demanding respect against exploitation.

As someone from South London, Campbell has excelled in her field, and as someone from the same area, it makes me smile. Even though, as a white person, I will never be able to grasp the full impact of her work, I can see how beneficial she has been in influencing young people to speak their minds in the fashion industry. Many white people underestimate how powerful white organisations and fashion brands have been in suppressing black voices historically, as if white privilege and racism did not exist until BLM. White people have risked blinding themselves with ego, their positions in fashion cast as success stories rather than determined by tight-casting exploitation. Naomi Campbell has transformed the industry completely through her unprecedented levels of assertion in terms of representation, showing others that you can be professional and speak your mind when being discriminated against. Her success story will be spoken about for generations and will leave an indelible impact on the terrain of fashion representation and inclusivity. Her sheer brilliance and contribution to the fashion industry will never be forgotten and has given hope to many younger black people who dream of working in the fashion industry. Naomi walked so that representation can run. She is the blueprint.