A montage of clips showing a newly-scouted 17-year-old Naomi Campbell strutting down a catwalk greets you upon entering the V&A’s new exhibition, NAOMI: In Fashion, which traces the supermodel’s inimitable career through 100 garments that have come to define her story. In the clips, Campbell’s gait is more playful and bouncy for an Alaïa show; smooth and serious for a Versace show. It shows the young model experimenting with her walk early in her career, adapting to fit a brief from each designer.
But as the exhibition develops, and visitors watch Campbell’s unmistakable walk become more defined, we learn how the supermodel has come to have seismic influence over the fashion industry. The exhibition marks the first time the South Kensington museum has focussed on the career of a living fashion model , as it tracks Campbell’s career and personal life through objects and garments from Campbell’s personal archive, ranging from her first headshots, to her 2020 Covid-19 hazmat suit look and her most-prized haute couture ensembles . Many of the pieces chosen by Campbell, 53, and the V&A curators typify key moments in the model’s career, including the pair of blue Vivienne Westwood Anglomania platform shoes (worn when she famously tumbled on the catwalk in 1993), the lavender tunic and jacket worn by Campbell for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel SS 1994 ready-to-wear collection and the Lagerfeld dress she wore in 1988 as the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Vogue.
