The model celebrated its 50th birthday on May 22nd and can look back on an eventful career.
She was the first dark-skinned model on the front page of the French “Vogue”. To this day, Naomi Campbell presents luxury fashion on the catwalks of the metropolises when she is not jetting around the world to collect donations. Last December she was awarded the highest prize at the London Fashion Awards and honored as a fashion icon.
The supermodel celebrated its milestone birthday on May 22. “When I started, I was not booked for certain shows because of my skin color. I didn’t let it bother me,” wrote the London-born author in her two-volume autobiography “Naomi Campbell”, which was published in limited numbers at just under 2,600 Euro is available. “I understood what it meant to be black. You had to make extra efforts. You had to be twice as good.”
Campbell grew up with her grandmother in South London in the 1970s. Her mother toured Europe as a dancer while Naomi attended a drama school for children. Even then she appeared on television and in music videos, including Bob Marley’s “Is This Love”. She was later seen in videos by Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, George Michael and Jay-Z.
Discovered as a model at 15
At 15 she was discovered as a photo model. Her mother was against it, but Campbell finally prevailed. At 16, she regularly flew to Paris for recordings. There she met the Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaia (1935-2017), who took her under his wing as a father figure and introduced her to the world of stars: Tina Turner, Jerry Hall, Grace Jones and Quincy Jones became friends.
Cover by cover, the model of Jamaican-Chinese origin worked her way up and had to fight prejudice and discrimination again and again. The feared boss of the American “Vogue”, Anna Wintour, finally raised her as the first black model on the cover of the important September issue. “I think she has received a lot of criticism for this,” Campbell revealed in her autobiography. “I will be eternally grateful to her.” Her supermodel friends Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista also helped her. “They told certain designers that if they wanted them on their show, they would have to book me too. That kind of support was unique.”
Choleric woman with charity tasks
Naomi Campbell is a world star with contradictions. On the one hand, she founded the non-profit organization Fashion For Relief in 2005 to use fashion shows to raise money for victims of hurricane Katrina, the Japanese tsunami and the Ebola epidemic across West Africa. This was triggered by her friendship with Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), who for her was like a “grandfather”, as she said. Lately, she has been primarily collecting money for educational programs in Africa. “Most of the population is under 30 years old. They need this education,” the supermodel told CNN.
Campbell, on the other hand, is notorious for her tantrums; she was convicted of assault four times. Her last appearance in court was in 2010 when she had to testify in the “blood diamond” trial against former Liberian president and war criminal Charles Taylor.
Campbell stands by her mistakes: “I learned from them,” she said “Vogue Arabia”. And on the British “Jonathan Ross Show” she admitted: “I think I made the word” anger management “famous.” She was on therapy and for years attended Narcotics Anonymous drug support group meetings: “I want to stay in the light,” she told the Guardian last year. “I don’t want to be in the dark. I don’t have depression, but mental health is very important to me.”
In a protective suit against the virus
And also her health in general: In a video from 2019, she took out gloves and disinfectant wipes on the plane and wiped her seat in the first class thoroughly. “I don’t care what people think about me,” she said as she cleaned. “It is my health and I feel better.”
Now she published the sequel in March: “In the past, people really laughed at me”, she explained and demonstrated how she now protects herself professionally against the corona virus with glasses, a face mask, a protective suit and a Burberry cape. “Now I’m not ridiculous.”
Friends like Cindy Crawford, Sharon Stone and Sean “Diddy” Combs currently only meet the New Yorker by video chat: In her new YouTube series “No Filter with Naomi” she tries to prove with other superstars how down to earth she deals with the corona pandemic.
(APA / dpa)
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