The international supermodel, who walked for Nigerian brand Tiffany Amber at Arise Fashion Week 2019, has set her sights on bringing attention to African talent.
With just a few hours until Naomi Campbell walks the runway four times at Lagos’s Arise Fashion Week, the atmosphere backstage was chaotic. But then, everything about Nigeria’s most populous city can feel stressful: the heat, the traffic, the general lack of regard for timeliness. “We’re going to need someone to order drinks for this room because we’re going to be in and out of it for the next few hours,” asserts Campbell as she paces around in an ornate suite inside the Lagos Continental hotel. “You,” she points at a young man. “You can put that bag down. Can someone get me a cigarette?”
Amid this palpable tension, it’s easy to interpret her as acerbic, and easier still to be a little intimidated. As we catch a moment to talk, I ask her what she thinks the general misconceptions are about her as a personality. “I don’t really care,” she replies, before deeply inhaling the cigarette that materialised a few moments after she’d asked. There’s been a lot of reports of Naomi the diva, so many that I’m almost preparing how to react if she shows up.
During our weekend together, though, I met a warmer, more philanthropic version of her that isn’t given half as much press. By all accounts, Campbell seems more at home among the anarchic energy of Lagos than on the high fashion runways where she made her name, and now, with 33 years of modelling and a huge amount of influence under her belt, she’s intent on helping others make theirs – which is why she’s begun making frequent trips to the West African hub, a troupe of influential friends and industry insiders in tow.
This time around, Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful and André Leon Talley were both in attendance – wanting the ex-US Vogue editor-at-large to witness what’s happening in the Nigerian city, she had invited him (and his sizeable entourage) out at the very last minute, enlisting him to host a talk. “It’s been chaos, but good chaos,” she explains. “It fuels me, gives me that adrenaline rush.”
Having modelled at Arise for the first time last season, this time, Campbell’s role had evolved to become more curatorial, as she endeavours to raise the profile of a host of young, talented creatives. It’s something she talks about with a lot of passion: “Coming here last year opened my eyes to seeing that these designers are not getting the exposure they should, and they’re so talented,” she says. “I’d wanted to wear some of their clothes in Europe and America but I was told they just didn’t have the means to produce more than one of each look. It was so sad for me to hear, and I thought: ‘What can I do to help?’ This is my industry, that I’ve been a part of for so long, and I want to help them.”
