Naomi Campbell by Ethan James Green, Vogue US November 2020

Vogue US honors supermodel Naomi Campbell, now 50 gorgeous years old and her flock of young models Adut Akech, Alton Mason, Anok Yai, Kaia Gerber and Ugbad Abdi in ‘Trailblazer, Mentor, Provocateur: How Naomi Campbell Changed Modeling Forever’.

Photographer Ethan James Green captures the Naomi Campbell cover story with backup from Campbell Addy and Ronan McKenzie. Carlos Nazario styles the shoot in fashion magnificence from Alaïa, Burberry, Christopher John Rogers, Dior Haute Couture, Loewe, Valentino Haute Couture, Versace, Victoria Beckham and more. / Makeup by Pat McGrath; hair by Jawara

See all the fashion credits at Vogue, coupled with Afua Kirsch’s interview, while we catch up with the South London Streatham-raised supermodel, who has just buried her grandmother at age 94. Naomi sits at a table surrounded by her mother Valerie Morris-Campbell, and aunts—Aunt Yvonne, who accompanied the young model on her first trip to Paris at age 16 and Aunt June, who escorted the young ingenue on her first trip to Milan.

Naomi Campbell, Ugbad Abdi, and Alton Mason by Ethan James Green, Vogue US November 2020

“Now you understand the strength of my family,” Campbell says, gesturing around the table at her many mothers. “You understand where I come from.”

Naomi pays it forward, becoming a mentor herself and a surrogate mother herself to the next generation of young models.

“Naomi is my family and always will be!” says Adut Akech. “She is my idol to this day.” Akech calls Campbell “mama”, much as British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful is her “papa”.

“Modeling can be a scary world, and getting support from anyone, let alone the trailblazers, means everything,” says Ugbad Abdi. “Ms. Naomi has taken so many models under her wing. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her being who she is unapologetically. She is the blueprint.”

Kaia Gerber by Ethan James Green, Vogue US November 2020

The designer Kenneth Ize, who first met Campbell in 2018 at Arise Fashion Week in Nigeria, tells Hirsch that “her support of his eponymous brand drove his success. Naomi walked Ize’s pre-pandemic Paris show in February 2020. Imaan Hammam also helped out, opening Ize’s show while Naomi closed it.

“I feel like Naomi is one of those people who will just light the candle and let it burn. What she’s done, I couldn’t pay for it!” Ize says. “She knows the value of what she is bringing to the table, and that if she supports this brand it’s going to hit the next level. Naomi is an activist—she tries to make sure that everyone is okay.”

“I never used to say the word racism; I just used to say, it’s territorialism,” Campbell says of her decades of interventions, of advocating for Black models. “I never wanted people to say that I used that as an excuse, that I was throwing that word out. Now I’m happy that everyone’s all on the same page, that everyone feels comfortable to come out about their experiences without feeling some stigma. But for me, nothing’s changed. I’m going to speak the same way.”

Campbell believes that showing backbone even as a young model is critical.

“Stand your ground,” responds Akech , reflecting on Naomi’s most consequential advice to the young model.. “And always stay true to yourself.”

“Naomi uses her public platform—as we all should—to speak against injustice and inequality,” says Anok Yai.

“Naomi navigates this world well,” says Kaia Gerber. “She sets an incredible example for others to follow.”

Ugbad Abdi by Ethan James Green, Vogue US November 2020

Remembering the time she wore a T-shirt with the message: ‘NAOMI HIT ME…AND I LOVED IT!!’, Naomi Campbell is not amused over the idea of the “angry Black woman.”

“Most women we admire—Madonna, Janet Jackson, Sharon Stone, Barbra Streisand, Oprah…when a woman stands her ground and wants to fight for something...a woman gets called a bitch for that. And when a guy does it, he’s just a hardworking guy,” Naomi told the world decades ago.

Naomi Campbell closes out her Afura Hirsch interview with news of her Apple TV docuseries ‘The Supermodels’, directed by Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple. Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford reunite with Naomi Campbell as they revisit their 1990s imprint on fashion and culture.

“It was really worth holding out. If we are going to do something, we are going to be involved in it throughout the whole process, from beginning to end. Linda, Christy, and Cindy, these are my sisters. The four of us tell it. I wasn’t going to do it any other way.”