14 DAY TRIAL // This month’s issue of Interview magazine features a lengthy interview and a very eerie photospread with none other than temperamental Naomi Campbell, in which she talks about anything and everything from fashion to her scandalous run-ins with authorities.
In the interview, Naomi talks a bit about being a supermodel in the ‘80s and how being black only made things rather difficult for her, because not many fashion magazines or designers would use black women back then.
However, she wouldn’t really use the term “supermodel” to refer to herself – or to any of the girls who broke in the spotlight at the time.
“You know, none of us ever cared about this word supermodel. It was just a kind of terminology that the press came up with for whatever reason. But what we did like was being together,” Naomi says.
Unlike models today, their were a tight community of girls who were always there for each other, traveling together, supporting each other and basically doing everything together as a group.
“We were very supportive of one another, my group of girls, and I don’t think that happens so much nowadays. We were all doing shows in each country, working nonstop, but it didn’t matter, because we enjoyed being together,” Campbell says.
Having so much fun with each other also meant all of them found the hard work easier to do, without once complaining about being tired.
What’s even more amazing about the wonderful bond Naomi shared with the other “supermodels of the ‘80s” was the fact that all the ladies she knew back then still look incredible to the day – and many continue to be involved in fashion and modeling, which, again, is a rare thing.
Not that it was easy for her personally to break into fashion: being black was seen as a disadvantage back then, Naomi reveals for the same interview.
Luckily, she refused to let this become an obstacle for her career.
“I’d look at whatever obstacles were in front of me and find the people who could help me overcome them. Patrick Demarchelier was the one who got me my first Vogue cover,” Campbell says.
“It was French Vogue – I think in ’87 or ’88. I think I was the first black model to be on the cover of French Vogue, which was shocking to me because when I asked them about it, they were like, ‘Oh, no. We’ve never had that before.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, really?’” says the model.
Back then, being black was not the best thing that could happen to a model, she adds. In fact, the editor of a magazine in Australia was fired because she’d put Naomi on the cover, which says a lot about the mentality at the time.
For the full interview with Naomi Campbell, as well as more photos, please refer here.
