Naomi Campbell’s famous community service dress to be featured in new V&A exhibition

A montage of clips showing the newly discovered 17-year-old Naomi Campbell strutting down a catwalk greets you as you enter the V&A’s new exhibition NAOMI: In Fashion, which traces the supermodel’s inimitable career through 100 items of clothing that have shaped her story.

In the clips, Campbell’s walk is more playful and bouncy for an Alaïa show, and more sleek and serious for a Versace show. The young model experiments with her walk at the start of her career, adapting it to the specifications of each designer. But as the exhibition progresses, and visitors become more aware of Campbell’s distinctive gait, we learn how the supermodel has made a huge impact on the fashion industry.

The exhibition is the first time that South Kensington Museum has devoted itself to the career of a living model. It traces Campbell’s career and personal life through objects and garments from Campbell’s personal archive, from her first portrait photographs to her Covid-19 protective suit look in 2020 to her most treasured haute couture ensembles.

Many of the pieces selected by Campbell, 53, and the V&A curators represent key moments in the model’s career, including the pair of blue Vivienne Westwood Anglomania platform shoes (which she wore during her famous catwalk fall in 1993), the lavender tunic and jacket Campbell wore for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel SS 1994 ready-to-wear collection, and the Lagerfeld dress she wore in 1988 as the first black woman to appear on the cover of FashionParis in the 68-year history of the magazine

The exhibition doesn’t shy away from some of Campbell’s more controversial moments. One standout outfit is the gray, rhinestone-encrusted Dolce & Gabbana dress she wore on her last day of community service at the New York City Sanitation Department in March 2007, which she completed as punishment for throwing a telephone at her housekeeper’s head. At the time, Campbell responded to the overwhelming press attention by chronicling her journey from trial to community service in a post in W Magazineentitled “The Naomi Diaries,” in which she wrote, “I thought if anyone was going to write about it, I would say it myself. It was a part of my life that I went through, I stand by it. I chose to wear that dress because I knew it would attract attention.”

She later wrote of her behavior: “Some people can handle a drink or a line of cocaine, but I realized that for me it’s all or nothing – and it doesn’t have to be anything. And my life has changed since then. I’m not saying that to excuse what I did. I threw the phone away, I take responsibility.”

The Alexander McQueen feather and fur coat she wore to the late fashion designer’s funeral in 2010 is also on display in the exhibition, which pays tribute to Lee McQueen’s long-standing fascination with birds, which was present in some of his final collections before his death. Elsewhere, Campbell paid tribute to Yves Saint Laurent, who was an early supporter of her work, as he was known for supporting black models and famously threatened to pull his advertising out of business. Fashion Paris if they didn’t give Campbell her first cover.

The most celebrated designer, however, is the late Tunisian-born, Paris-based designer Azzedine Alaïa, who maintained a close personal and professional relationship with Campbell, having made his home and studio available to the young model at the start of her career. With her mother’s permission, Campbell lived with the designer, his partner and their dogs while she made her name in the modelling industry. She later called him “Papa” and walked in all of his runway shows.

The exhibition features the leopard-print knit bodysuit from the designer’s 1991 Autumn/Winter collection, which Campbell wore for the cover of interview While video clips of her runway appearances at Alaïa show the young Campbell performing energetic tap choreography, ballet steps and contemporary dance moves down the runway, she uses the skills she learned at the Italia Conti performing arts school, where she was a student before being discovered at age 17.

The upper room of the exhibition is filled with a 360-degree projection of Campbell’s best fashion photography moments, with 15 minutes of moving images curated by former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful. They show key cover shoots, such as the 2009 Harper’s Bazaar Cover, which features Campbell sprinting in a leopard print dress next to a running leopard, the historic Fashion and her 2022 cover, taken while holding her first baby, born to a surrogate at age 50.

Part of the exhibition focuses on Campbell’s well-known activist work, which saw her campaign for racial equality from a young age, join the Black Girls Coalition in 1989 and create the cover of Italian Vogue’s “Black Issue” in 2007. There is also a section exploring her relationship with Nelson Mandela, who once called her his “honorary granddaughter,” featuring photographs of the couple embracing from Campbell’s private collection.

NAOMI: In fashion, supported by BOSS, runs from 22 June 2024 to 6 April 2025. Tickets are available here on the V&A website.