She has graced the covers of fashion magazines for decades, has been a muse to countless designers and has broken down racial barriers within the world of fashion an industry famed for being notoriously treacherous to models of colour her name is the one and only Naomi Campbell …
They said she wouldn’t last yet here we are more than thirty five years after she was first discovered and Naomi is still as in demand now as she always has been instantly recognizable as one of the world’s most beautifully woman, her luminous chocolate skin, lush pout, smouldering eyes and legs that seemed to go on forever have proved irresistible to advertisers, editors and, most importantly fashion designers.
A muse to the legendary Gianni Versace, Azzedine Alaïa, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld, Naomi became the first black women to appear on the cover of French Vogue and the first British black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue.
A member of the original “supermodel” pack alongside the other “supers” Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Tatjana Patitz, women who dominated the world of fashion more than any models before or since.
This is never more evident than when in 1993 as she walked the runway for Vivienne Westwood she fell, with media lightbulbs flashing to capture the moment Naomi can be seen bashfully smiling at being beaten by a pair of towering platforms something unheard off as models today would be heavily chastised for and even sacked!
But beloved as she was by the fashion luvvies, this stunning supermodel soon developed a name forherself as being somewhat of a “diva”. In 1993 she was fired from her agency, Elite Model Management, for reportedly abusing staff and clients. Then in 2000 things took an uglier turn with Campbell pleading guilty to assaulting her personal assistant after throwing a phone at her, which she blamed on anger issues brought on from her addiction to cocaine, something she had remedied with a stint in rehab. But the scandals didn’t end there, in 2007, she was found guilty of assaulting a former housekeeper and dragged through the media and in 2010 she became embroiled in a well-publicised war crimes trial against former Liberian leader Charles Taylor after she accepted a gift of “blood diamonds” from him which she thought were just “dirty rocks”.
Naomi’s love life has also been just as tumultuous, but the truth of the matter is that there are not many who have tamed this mannequin’s heart. She has been linked to Spaniard Joaquín Cortés, the actor Leonardo Di Caprio, boxer Mike Tyson, Adam Clayton, musician Eric Clapton, Formula 1 supremo Flavio Briatore, actors Robert de Niro and Sylvester Stallone, Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin and most recently former One Direction singer, Liam Payne who is 25years her junior and while a man has not managed captured this wild beauties heart one thing that does holds dear is her commitment to charity and fundraising work which surprisingly given all the column inches that Naomi has filled over the decades is something very few know about.
Naomi’s notable charity work began in 2005, when she founded the charity We Love Brazil, which sells fabrics made by local women to fight poverty in Brazil, then in 2005, she founded Fashion for Relief, which raised over $1 million for Hurricane Katrina victims, and has provided millions of dollars for other victims around the world, like those of the Haiti and Japan earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. An avid supporter and promoter for the African community, Naomi’s most recent work has focused on bringing Africa to the forefront of the global fashion scene, and promoting the use of African textiles, fabrics and craftsmanship
And now as she enters into her fifth decade, what does the future hold for this hardworking Londoner who is work a staggering $90million, well we can be assured that she won’t retire from fashion having publically proclaiming back in 2016 that she despises the word 'retire' and there’s no plan’s yet.
Well that’s a relief!!!
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