NAOMI in Fashion – Review
November 17, 2024NAOMI in Fashion – review. This show is a wonderful opportunity to see lots of iconic designer fashion, with some Naomi memorabilia and a raft of great imagery.
Naomi Campbell is one of the most recognisable supermodels in the world, and this exhibition at the V&A pays tribute to her quite fittingly. She is famous, of course, chiefly for the stream of images of her, particularly in the 1990s. And then for two other things. One is falling over on Vivienne Westwood’s catwalk. This hit headlines in 1993. She was wearing enormous platforms at the time. She sat for a moment, giggled, got back up, and continued, with a slight blush and a smile. Everyone loved it, because it was a little moment of human-ness for the supermodel. The second is not so cute.
In 2007 she had, apparently, a spate of phone throwing. As well as chucking mobiles at assistants, she threw one that “accidentally” injured her maid, and was sentenced to community service and anger management classes for the “misdemeanour”. This article on the subject is incredibly smarmy, describing her “mellifluous British accent” along with what she was wearing to the hearing. The press further fuelled this fashion led circus, photographing her every day as she completed her punishment, culminating in her wearing a silver sequinned Dolce&Gabanna gown for the last day. It seemed to make it all rather fun. It’s almost like snorting coke and taking things out on your underlings in a rage is ok if you’re beautiful. For me, this left a bad taste and I wondered if the exhibition might restore her reputation.
NAOMI in Fashion – Review
Naomi in Fashion. Photo courtesy Vivienne Westwood/V&A.
Naomi in fashion – review. Courtesy VERSACE. Photo Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Courtesy Off-White. Photo Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Courtesy Mugler Archives. Photo Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Courtesy Azzedine Alaïa Foundation. Photo Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Naomi in fashion – review (c) Steven Meisel
I don’t think it does. I don’t see much of her personality here, just a lot of clothes and photos. Really great clothes, and really great photos. Naomi trained as a dancer and that was her first career choice. It makes her excellent at posing and you can see why she would be a photographer’s favourite. She’s probably great at taking direction as well. She definitely has a very striking presence. But there’s nothing to say she is a nice – or interesting – person.
There is a display case with the usual suspects of personal items. Blurred family snapshots of Naomi as a baby, Naomi at stage school, Naomi starring in a Bob Marley video aged six. Naomi’s first Concorde ticket.
A Young Model
Naomi in fashion – Review. Naomi was scouted at the age of 15, and in voiceover she remembers being given a model scout’s card when she was out and about somewhere she shouldn’t have been: skipping school perhaps, hanging out in Covent Garden. She worried about how she would explain it all to her mum. Due to her mother being a dancer herself and Naomi being in stage school since the age of three, and training at the Italia Conti, plus that Bob Marley video, I imagine she was delighted.
Her first Elle cover was just before her 16th birthday.
Although the show is not critical of the modelling industry whatsoever, it does gives a the viewer a couple of things to ponder. Some of those early images seem really incongruous. A 1987 fashion shoot for Rifat Ozbek show a pretty girl in a massive hat – so far from the dazzling, high-cheekboned woman she would become that it’s hard for a moment to see why she was scouted. Except looking at other photos, it’s not, because she was clearly one of those kids who had a spurt of puberty and grew those very long, thin arms and legs. So she had a model physique – thin and long limbed.
It’s not news, obviously, and the industry is working on changing it. It’s just – why would it work in the first place? Why would they want to put a picture of a child in a hat and think, yes, the middle aged women who have money will now want to buy this hat? I guess it’s just fashion’s insular logic.
NAOMI in Fashion – Review
However, moving on a couple of steps and I am quite startled by a video of Naomi apparently on the verge of giving Michael Jackson (I think?) a blow job. She is a few years older then, thankfully. She squirms around on bedsheets and in very sexual poses a lot. It’s a reminder that fashion photos in the 90s were very different. Azzedine Alaïa, who took her under his wing in Paris and whom she called “Papa”, while he called her “My Daughter”, said she had the “perfect body”; “I saw the shape of a violin”. I cannot, personally, see the shape of a violin here, because Naomi has endless limbs, not curves. But, perhaps that shows how very thin and childlike other model’s body were. Rifat Ozbek, meanwhile, called her “Baby Woman”. She liked the term so much that she called her album that. It doesn’t age well.
But what has aged well are the outfits. They are immaculately preserved, and include examples from Zac Posen, Alaiä, Yohji Yamamoto, Alexandra McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, and all the greats. They are styled on mannequins to look just like how Naomi wore them in photoshoots. There are also a series of talking heads with people like Boy George recalling their memories of her. Video screens show examples of her many fashion shoots and magazine covers, along with breathless quotes.
The exhibition closes with a little “Naomi” backdrop so you can do a catwalk turn yourself.
NAOMI in Fashion is on until 6th April 2025 at the V & A South Kensington.
