Naomi Elaine Campbell was born in 22 May 1970 and is an English model. Recruited at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognizable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and the 1990s, and was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion industry.
Campbell is of African-Jamaican descent, as well as of Chinese Jamaican ancestry through her paternal grandmother, who carried the family name "Ming".
Campbell's first public appearance came at the age of seven, in 1978, when she was featured in the music video for Bob Marley's "Is This Love". At the age of twelve, she tap-danced in the music video for Culture Club's "I'll Tumble 4 Ya". In 1986, while still a student of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, Campbell was scouted by Beth Boldt, head of the Synchro Model Agency, while window-shopping in Covent Garden. Her career quickly took off—in April, just before her sixteenth birthday, she appeared on the cover of British Elle.
Over the next few years, Campbell's success grew steadily: she walked the catwalk for such designers as Gianni Versace, Azzedine Alaïa, and Isaac Mizrahi, and posed for such photographers as Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, and Bruce Weber. By the late 1980s, Campbell, with Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista, formed a trio known as the "Trinity" who became the most recognisable and in-demand models of their generation.
She stills working and modelling until the present. Time doesn't go by the Diva. She's timeless.
In 1998, Time declared the end of the supermodel era. By then, Campbell had mostly retired from the catwalk but she continued print modelling.
After more than two decades as a model, Campbell remains in demand.
Campbell is involved with several charitable causes. She supports the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and in 2005, she founded the charity We Love Brazil, which aims to raise awareness and funds to fight poverty in Brazil through the sale of fabrics made by local women. That same year, Campbell founded the charity Fashion for Relief, which has organised fund-raising fashion shows to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the Japan earthquake in 2011.
Since 2007, Campbell has been the honorary president of Athla Onlus, an Italian organisation that works to further the social integration of young people with learning disabilities. In 2009, Campbell became a goodwill ambassador for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. She has since joined the charity's patron, Sarah Brown, the wife of former British prime minister Gordon Brown on several missions to promote maternal health.
Campbell has received recognition for her charitable work. In 2007, she was named an ambassador of Rio de Janeiro by mayor Cesar Maia in recognition of her efforts to fight poverty in Brazil. In 2009, she was awarded Honorary Patronage of Trinity College's University Philosophical Society for her charitable and professional work. In 2010, Sarah Brown presented her with an "Outstanding Contribution" award from British Elle for her work as an ambassador for the White Ribbon Alliance, as well as her work in the fashion industry
You can follow her activity by keeping up with her official web site and her social networks, she's very active and always has a positive vibe that inspires us.
She will remain as one of my biggest influence in fashion and I feel very glad for growing up in the golden era of topmodels, where there was the supermodels era.
They were real supermodels. And I reallt miss that era.
She is Naomi Campbell.
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| Kate and Naomi illustration |
