50 years of Naomi Campbell: the top who fought for inclusiveness
Arrogant, determined, self-confident but also deeply vulnerable. We are talking about the unique and inimitable Naomi Campbell who turns 50 today (even if she doesn't show it!). Of Afro-Jamaican descent, she is the first black model to appear on the cover of Vogue, first in France and then in England, and of Time Magazine. But his career began even earlier: in 1978, when he was only eight years old, he appeared in the video of "Is This Love?" alongside Bob Marley. Included in the magazine's list of the 50 most beautiful women in the world People, has paraded for the most famous fashion houses and fought for many of the humanitarian causes that have affected, and still affect, the African continent, plagued by hunger and misery. No wonder that his role model is former South African president Nelson Mandela, the one who defeated Apartheid and by which she was considered an "honorary granddaughter".
The commitment against racial discrimination in the fashion world
Today, between a fashion show and a television appearance, she is the spokesperson, together with Iman and the former model Bethann Hardison, of "Diversity Coalition", a campaign that aims to denounce the lack of inclusiveness on the part of the fashion-system when it is about black designers and models, who - according to the model - should be guaranteed the same opportunities that Caucasian people enjoy. It is no coincidence, in fact, that Naomi is a great friend of Pierpaolo Piccioli, the creative director of the maison Valentino. The man who, faced with a clear absence of non-Caucasian models on the catwalks (in 2018, they were only 32.5%), decides to show 48 black models out of 65, revealing their rare beauty in dresses haute-couture, which would put an end to the combination of black person and street style. Among these, also Adut Akech, Naomi's great protégé who probably sees in her a small and new "black Venus".
Naomi is not afraid of anything or anyone. He has repeatedly dealt with vis-à-vis the most well-known designers on the planet, putting them in front of the undeniable racist dynamics of which the fashion world is steeped. "Hey, why don't you show black models?", the supermodel has thundered several times, victim in turn, even after a glittering multi-decade career, of discriminatory acts. But this has never stopped her, Naomi has always moved forward at a soft pace, in life as on the catwalk, aware, from day zero, of having to work harder than the "other", the white models, to achieve their own results. . And it has succeeded, indeed it has gone far beyond.
A deeply (and unexpectedly) fragile woman
Loved and hated, Naomi has stained herself with some gestures she says she is ashamed of today. Olympic champion in the discipline of “throwing the phone”, the model's repressed anger has been repeatedly interpreted, erroneously, as a symptom of an extremely capricious personality. But this aggression, in reality, as she has repeatedly tried to explain herself, is born in the depths and is linked to dynamics of which she was previously unaware. Behind the court trials and speculation by the tabloids, a fragile soul hides, irremediably scarred by the fear of abandonment. She who, protected by a sturdy rind, still suffers from some wounds left open. That biological father never met, a mother just nineteen who entrusted her to third parties to travel and fulfill her dream of becoming a dancer. And then the problems with drug addiction, which began when he was 24 and became, over time, an escape from pain, the same one experienced on the occasion of the death of Gianni Versace, the designer who, first of all, had understood what stuff it was made of.
After a rehabilitation process, today Naomi is well and is ready to celebrate her 50 years in better shape than ever, although she is keen to emphasize that the inner part of herself must be celebrated and taken care of as much as the outer one. Today she lends her voice to those who do not have a voice, rejecting the stereotypical image of the woman as an object, "beautiful but stupid". Happy birthday Venere Nera, you will always be the queen of the tops!
