Naomi Campbell or the age of impatience

In one of those videos that cyclically emerges and repeats on the Internet, a charming and smiling Naomi Campbell assures him, in the context of a 2000 television interview with Barbara Walters on ABC, that she wouldn't mind being remembered in the future for “being a bitch”. "A very hard-working and loyal bitch," the supermodel clarified with a smile. The interview, -which intended to address the Campbell scandals from a slightly more sophisticated approach than the traditional racist stereotype of angry black woman-, is what could be described today as iconic precisely because of that response, in which the model not only appropriates of a term commonly used to discredit us women, but also resignifies it as something positive, assuring that being a slut had protected her at the beginning of her career, and that she had no interest in appearing to be a "sweet and good girl" .

But, as iconic as it was, the answer was wrong, since twenty years after its broadcast nothing and no one would have to remind us of the extremely hardworking bitch that Naomi Campbell can become except herself, who at 51 is still active as model and, it seems, far from retiring from the catwalks. In this show season alone, Campbell has walked as many runways as any young model at the peak of her career. Specifically, five mythical and very relevant firms throughout her life in modeling such as Versace, Fendi, Balmain, Lanvin and Alexander McQueen, whose parade closed last night in an appearance that has been widely commented on throughout the length and breadth of the specialized press.

In the trajectory of a woman who came into the world with the inevitable fate of changing it, this seems like just one more chapter of that prolific legacy that she is treasuring in her lifetime. The one who was a pioneer in the nineties in the transformation of the rickety canons of beauty, being the only black model to be part of the group considered as the original supermodels, photographed by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue in the early nineties, and the woman who took the nickname "bitch" to make it her own and put it at the service of a generation of women tired of asking for forgiveness and permission, seems to have focused on the battle against ageism. Not only because of her recent maternity, at the age of fifty, which she has not ceased to be involved in some controversy, but precisely because of her still very hectic professional activity.

In an industry where age ostracizes careers, impacting the models of beauty accessible to those who inevitably come into contact with them, being an aspirational mirror for generations who are as a rule pushed out of the fashion universe, and being so active and enthusiastic, contributes in some way to alleviate the old narrative that parks the emotion of the life of women once their youth is over. Of her peers from the supermodel generation, she is the only one who continues to make the catwalk a regular sight to meet.

Little by little, the urgency for diverse beauty references seems to permeate the sector, and although the size and presence of racialized models is presented as the immediate remedy in an industry in which pretending that you have solved a problem is sometimes more important to really solve it, from its structure, other bodies and other realities continue to be excluded. Age continues to be one of those barriers that prevent us from talking about real diversity. Which could lead us to the question, although we applaud Campbell's gesture for continuing with her professional activity; Can we consider that having a model like her really represents fifty-year-old women in the world of fashion and luxury? Do her face and her body set a new realistic and healthy standard for fashion consumers her age or is she another unattainable role model? Or what amounts to the same thing, does Campbell's presence as a standard-bearer middle-aged model confer the right to grow old in fashion? Or does her example fall short? As the beginning of a path, it is not at all irrelevant, but the distance to travel is long and time, and the patience of those who demand change, is pressing.

SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter to receive all the news on fashion, beauty and lifestyle.