Fashion Pioneer Naomi Campbell Named CFDA 2018 Fashion Icon

The CFDA Fashion Awards is held every June to honor the biggest names in fashion. This year’s awards took place on Monday, June, 4 at the Brooklyn Museum and was hosted by writer and producer, Issa Rae. One of the most coveted awards of the night went to Naomi Campbell, who has been a mainstay in fashion for over 30 years, as the Council of Fashion Designers of America named her their 2018 Fashion Icon.

Campbell’s long-standing career in the fashion industry is what earned her the honor. Since being discovered at the age of 15, she has been on 500 magazine covers, including the cover of TIME in September of 1991 which was historic as no other Black woman had ever been featured on the publication’s cover. Additionally, she’s considered to be one of the five original supermodels alongside Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Claudia Schiffer.

Her equally fierce walk, face, and attitude guaranteed that Naomi could not be overlooked, even as she was often the only Black model in the room. While things have improved for Black women in the fashion industry since the peak of her career, Campbell continues to work with fellow model, Iman, for representation. She also founded Fashion for Relief in 2005. The organization holds fashion shows to raise funds for various causes, the first being Hurricane Katrina relief.

Campbell’s other endeavors include numerous television and music video appearances. In 2012, she served as executive producer and supermodel coach on Oxygen’s reality modeling competition “The Face.” The show also aired in Campbell’s home, the United Kingdom, the following year.

What makes Naomi Campbell a true icon, though, is that she’s done everything on her resume with a sense of style and level of grace admired by many. Other 2018 CFDA Fashion Awards winners include Donatella Versace who won the International Award, Kim Kardashian who won the Influencer Award and Edward Enninful who won the Media Award.

Chantè Russell

Chanté Russell is a Howard University print journalism major from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her entire life has been shaped by her passion for writing, fashion and activism. Those passions have led her to create a blog entitled Be The Zeitgeist and serve as a staff writer for Howard’s student newspaper, The Hilltop. She has also written for Lady With Attitude and worked as a freelance journalist. Some of her biggest role models include Anna Wintour, Maya Angelou and her cousin, Dr. Jennifer Edwards, who inspired Chanté to attend Howard. After completing college, Chanté hopes to work as a fashion journalist and use her platform to combat cultural insensitivity within the fashion industry and improve the public perception of the industry.

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