Naomi Campbell and the black models who changed the fashion industry

“Do you want to be a model?” asked talent scout Beth Boldt, as she approached a group of students in the Covent Garden area of ​​London.

Naomi Campbell, then 15 years old, thought Boldt was talking to her blonde friends and separated herself from the group. But she was the one who caught the talent scout’s eyes.

“I’m talking to you,” she said to Campbell.

The shy teenager would become the most famous black model in history – a supermodel of extraordinary versatility (considered the best “walk” on the catwalk), as well as a media personality and advocate for equal rights in an industry where black people have long been neglected.

To celebrate the model’s 40-year career, the NAOMI: In Fashion exhibition opened on June 22 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

It shows the highs and lows of Naomi Campbell and presents many of her memorable clothes and accessories, such as the blue shoes with 30 cm heels, by designer Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022), which became famous when they knocked the model off the catwalk in 1993 .

Also on display is the silver Dolce & Gabbana couture dress she wore on her last day of community service – a five-day sentence for a crime caused by her notorious temper.

Asked by Grazia magazine why she had dressed that way for the occasion, Campbell replied: “Why should they expect me to turn up in rags or anything?”

THE RIGHT TO BE SEEN

This refusal to be diminished by society’s expectations must have helped Naomi Campbell become the first black woman portrayed on the cover of the French edition of Vogue magazine, in 1988.

When the magazine featured her white supermodel friends and she was turned down, Campbell doubled down. She approached fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008), one of Vogue’s biggest advertisers, who agreed to withhold clothing and advertising until the magazine relented.

“I definitely had to fight hard,” Campbell says in the book accompanying the exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

“Some people were just being honest when they told me they’d never thought about using a black girl. So I didn’t always take it as racism. I just thought, ‘OK, you’ve never tried, now it’s time to try.'”

Campbell was quick to acknowledge other trailblazers. In an interview with TV host Michael Parkinson in 2004, she said, “When I get a cover, I think it’s not just for me, it’s for the generation of women before me.” [e] after me.”

One of those who paved the way for revolutionary models like Campbell was Donyale Luna (1945-1979). The American model was the first black star to appear on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 1965.

But the result was disappointing. It was an illustration, not a photograph – and her skin was light pink.

Also disappointing was the mixed public reaction to the inclusion of black people in pages that had long been considered a privilege for whites. In the United States, some sponsors threatened to withdraw their advertising and some readers canceled subscriptions to the magazine.

But the following year, the British edition of Vogue put Luna on the cover. This time, her skin was darker, but representation of her as an ancient Egyptian followed the metaphor of the “exotic” black woman, representing the limited roles that were offered to them at the time.

THE CONCEPT OF BLACK BEAUTY

“Historically, black women in white America have been called many things. ‘Beautiful’ was one of the last,” said American writer and model Barbara Summers (1944-2014) in her landmark 1998 work, “Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion” (“Superficial as skin: inside the world of black fashion”, in free translation).

The book breaks the historical and social context of notions about black beauty.

The author highlights the “impersonal… and often indelicate” representation of black women in 20th century art and the internalization of a “sad legacy of slavery” that, for her, dictated “the parameters of our existence, from what we could wear to who we could be.”

In the early 20th century, new products such as skin lighteners and hair straightening creams sent the message that natural black features needed to be corrected. This led to what Summers calls a “confusion” about what constituted black beauty.

At the same time, lynchings in the United States clearly communicated the risks of entering white spaces. It was only with the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s that people began to mobilize in greater numbers against American racism.

Naomi Sims (1948-2009) was an example of a new generation of brave models who waited neither permission nor an invitation to enter a predominantly white industry.

Tired of being rejected by agencies, she sought out photographers directly, until she reached the covers of magazines and modeled for designers Halston and Giorgio di Sant’Angelo.

Sims promoted her fellow American Beverly Johnson, the first black star to be portrayed on the cover of the American edition of Vogue, in 1974 – exactly 50 years ago.

Johnson celebrated the occasion with the show Beverly Johnson: In Vogue. The show is based on her 2015 memoir, “Beverly Johnson: The Face that Changed It All.”

“She was very kind to me and I told myself that’s how I’m going to treat other young models,” Johnson told cable channel BET last year.

In 1988, two famous black models founded the Black Girls Coalition to demand equal pay and representation in the fashion industry. They are Iman, who is originally from Somalia, and New Yorker Bethann Hardison.

Campbell joined the Coalition a year later. Since then, she has described Hardison as “a second mother.”

Hardison had participated in the legendary Battle of Versailles in 1973 – a catwalk standoff between European and American designers that changed the course of fashion history. Modern American fashion houses unexpectedly overshadowed the old guard of Parisian haute couture with an army of majestic black models.

“Fashion would never be colonized in the same way again,” wrote Summers.

One of the coalition’s achievements was the movement that led to an all-black edition of Vogue Italia. Published in 2008, with four different covers (including Campbell), the edition sold out in the UK and USA within 72 hours.

Editor Edward Enninful, who was responsible for the production, said: “I never thought I would see anything like this – my people, my race, wearing the collections, beautiful, chic, real women in that way.”

“But most importantly, it proves we are financially viable. We sell.”

ACTIVISM HAS WORKED

Inspired by her brave predecessors and her friendship with Nelson Mandela, whom she met in the 1990s, Naomi Campbell launched the activism that became central to her work.

She is a prominent advocate for African designers such as Marianne Fassler and Tiffany Amber. Campbell promotes her work by participating in her shows and supporting ARISE Fashion Week, which celebrates African fashion.

Activist models like Campbell are gradually winning their battles.

According to The Fashion Spot’s diversity report on New York Fashion Week, in spring 2015, only 20% of models were non-white. By 2022, they were more than half.

But there is still work to be done before models of color feel fully at home.

Detroit-based model Megan Milan said in a viral TikTok post last year that she had to redo her makeup for a New York Fashion Week show because she was unsure how to work with black skin. “I looked like a ghost,” she lamented.

British-Ghanaian model, visual image maker and storyteller TJ Sawyerr has worked for Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood and Lacoste. For him, there remains an issue that he describes as “performative symbolism” in the industry’s interest in black models.

“If you are fully aware that your inclusion is based on meeting a public relations requirement or strategy, I think for many people it may seem devaluing,” he told the BBC.

But Sawyerr’s experience has been predominantly positive.

“Seeing examples of people who looked like us… gave me enormous confidence, to the point where there really wasn’t much questioning about the possibility of me, as a black person, entering this industry,” he says.

Sawyerr cites the example of American model Alton Mason, who he describes as “the first male supermodel of the modern era.” He also mentions his good friend and fellow Ghanaian Ottawa Kwami as “arguably one of the best examples of what the newfound accessibility of this industry is doing for people from marginalized backgrounds.”

Sawyerr now spends more time behind the lens and has formed a chain of good. He hires black set designers, models, art directors and stylists for projects that he says “promote the appreciation of our culture and our origins” and “honor individuals who may not receive the shine that I think they deserve.”

Like Campbell, Sawyerr grew up in south London. He photographed the supermodel in what he recalls as “a very beautiful moment, of a complete comeback.”

Sawyerr describes her as “a huge driving force” who “paved the way for a much more accessible commercial industry for black models.”

Building on the success of her predecessors and now championing emerging talent, Naomi Campbell has changed the fashion industry forever, shattering the industry’s narrow notions of beauty.

“Black women have more DNA on this planet than any other woman,” highlighted American model Veronica Webb in the documentary “Supreme Models” (2022).

“Our appearance comes in 100 million different forms and we should never deny that. We should never deny any aspect of our beauty.”

The exposure NAOMI: In Fashion is on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 22 June to 6 April 2025. book of the same name accompanying the exhibition, Naomi Campbell discusses 20 of her most iconic looks.

This report was originally published here.