Naomi Campbell Breaks Down 30 Years’ Worth of Met Gala Magic

Hello Vogue, it's Naomi Campbell here.

I'm going to walk you through my looks

of all the Met Balls that I attended over the years.

This is quite a thrill.

[upbeat music]

So here we go.

So the first look is 1990.

It's Gianni Versace.

It was the first Met Ball I ever attended.

I was in such awe to first be invited by Gianni Versace

through my roommate Christy Turlington.

The 90s was,

you wore everything.

You dressed up in the 90s.

If you, it didn't matter if you were going for dinner.

We would all go to dinner outside of work,

Christy, Linda, I,

we would dress up.

You know, enjoy your clothes,

enjoy your accessories, enjoy your hair.

This one also I'm wearing Gianni Versace.

Wow, I loved this dress.

It was slim-fitting and body hugging

and just glistened.

I remember when I saw this dress

for the first time I thought,

Wow, Gianni, is that for me?

It seemed like one of those dresses that you read

in those fairytale books, you know?

So here we are, 2001.

The theme was Jackie Kennedy.

I can't quite say that we actually were appropriate

for the theme, but in any rate,

we were wearing Dolce & Gabbana.

Getting to be next to Iman who I love and respected

and always looked up to,

was just, you know, another dream conquered in my life.

For the Met Ball,

it's primping the whole day.

It's kinda crazy.

You know, you get like a facial, you do your nails, we get,

some kind of wellness treatment to feel good about yourself

and then you start with the hair and make up around three.

If you're doing four, you're pushing it.

2003 and here I am wearing Dolce again

with Victoria Beckham.

I love this whole collection they did

with like the sowing and the lace.

I still have this dress.

It was definitely ruby red night 'cause I've got

tons of rubies on.

I've got a choker and a crucifix, mistake.

Definitely less would have been best on the neck.

So here I am, 2006,

and this was the Anglomania

so as a Brit, you know, I wanted to wear a Brit.

Anna had thought that it would be a great idea

if I wore Alexander McQueen.

This was to be his last season at Givenchy

so Anna actually chose the color of my pale green dress

and then Lee did his magic with the Givenchy staff

and one of the things I remember so much from the fitting

is how much Lee loved his staff

and how he treated them.

It was just one of my fittings I'll never forget.

I felt very neat

and I felt very simple and classic

but in a good way.

I didn't feel like I'd overdone it.

I felt like it was all a good package.

So this is 2007.

I'm in no other than my papa, Azzedine Alaia,

which I think women all over the world aspired and loved

Azzedine Alaia for the way he made our bodies look.

What can I say?

It was always a unique experience to be fitted by papa

and for him to create on your body

in the middle of the night

and to see the finished product

and he did everything himself.

I have the fondest memories of all of those times.

Few years had gone by and I hadn't been to the Mets

and now we skip to 2010

and I'm back to my old pals again.

[laughs]

When you feel that you wanna be that Sicilian

type of voluptuous woman,

you go to no other than Dolce & Gabbana.

I actually think my hair was not working.

No, it should've just been straight, no curls.

And I could've done without the lips too.

Lady Gaga performed at this one.

It now became like 10 times bigger.

Everybody and anybody was at the Met.

It's a great turn out for fashion and our industry.

It's our Oscars.

Okay, so, we go to 2011

which was a very bittersweet Met.

Lot of tear and sadness still

as it was for our beloved Alexander McQueen.

And Sarah Burton, who I got to know while working

with Lee over the years, made me a beautiful dress.

It's a masterpiece to me.

This dress was so intricate because it was made on

a corset that was sheer,

made to my skin color.

It had like a long train cape but it was not really a cape,

it was connected to the dress at the back.

I felt like I was really embodying Lee the best I could

in his honor.

I do think my hair could have been more simple.

If Lee had been alive, because he was someone

that would always tell us what he liked,

he would have said straight and that's it.

Straight and back, I think.

So here we are now speeding forward to 2014.

My God, I've been to so many Mets.

Charles James: Beyond Fashion was the exhibition

and I was wearing Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci.

He was so clear in his vision, what he wanted me to wear

and he just said I want you to be

kind of Diana Ross-ish

and glamorous and I loved that it was like a pale,

soft, baby pink.

I felt very warm

and girly and flirty.

I felt very comfortable in my skin in this dress.

With Riccardo and with this dress from Givenchy,

I think I did like one fitting

and then the day of.

As models from the beginning, we never really got involved

with what the designers wanted to put us in.

We'd just say okay.

I mean, it would have to be something like really, really,

ridiculous for us to say we won't wear that.

It just never happened, it just was easy.

Here we are, 2015, a year later

and the theme for this year's was

China: Through the Looking Glass.

I wanted to wear Burberry and Christopher Bailey

was the artistic director of Burberry

and so Burberry is what we wore.

When I first met Christopher Bailey,

he worked with Gucci when Tom Ford was the creative director

so I know Christopher Bailey

knew how to make me a sexy dress [laughs]

and he did.

I loved this dress, it was like a chartreuse, sequins, matte

with feathers at the bottom, like a ostrich feather.

And it was just really, really, close to my body.

It had a long, plunging neckline.

No jewelry this time, absolutely nothing.

Not one necklace.

Zilch.

I just wore a bracelet and that was it.

It was great.

I loved this dress

and I got to have accompany me

my wonderful and great friend, director Lee Daniels.

It was a fun Met and it was a fun

after party too that night.

We were out dancing all night long.

2016, Manus Machina.

And so it's more this futuristic thing.

There were some intricate dresses.

There were dresses with electricity,

I mean, I cannot tell you.

I was wearing Peter Dundas

and I thought I just want a simple dress.

It was a kind of bra top

then a skirt.

Then he connected the bra top to the skirt

and he did that on the Sunday,

the day before the Met.

We thought about putting a big feather coat

but then we just thought it's too much.

It was just better to go simple like that.

Okay, so, here we are, 2017, it's Comme Garcons

and I've known Rei Kawakubon and worked for Rei

since I was 16, since 1986

so it was such an honor.

I mean she could like five exhibitions

without repeating the same thing, easy,

because she's just got so much amazing archive.

This is the first time I'd gone to the Met

without a designer.

So I was like, okay, what am I gonna wear?

Of course, you know what I wore.

I wore Azzedine Alaia, I wore my papa

and it was this black velvet dress with these pleats

and like pressed metals that just went all the way around

in a very high split.

It wasn't that high but we made it higher than it was.

I was so,

wanted to wear Alaia to this one because Azzedine and Rei

Kawakubo were very, very close friends

and so I thought it would be appropriate.

So here we are, skipping two years forward to 2019

and this Met Ball is called Camp, C-A-M-P.

We used to say that word in the late 80s and 90s

the whole time.

Oh, she's so camp, he's so camp.

As you can imagine, the word camp

you can go in so many directions.

Up, down, across, whatever

and that's exactly how it went down.

I was going to the Met this year with Sir Jony Ive

so I chose this year to wear Pierpaolo Valentino.

Maison Valentino and Pierpaolo.

So here comes Saturday.

I go up to Valentino's store to do my fitting.

I tried my dress but there was something,

I don't know,

it was too much fabric, I felt,

and Pierpaolo came and he completely started

the dress from scratch.

Basically, he made me a bodysuit

and put like a skirt around

and then I had the incredible cape.

I mean, my outfit was really lace tights

and a chiffon top with a chiffon skirt around

and it was made in like 30 hours.

I've been asked the most fun I've had at the Met ever.

It was incredible to see Cher.

Everyone just like, got out their cameras

and

it's just like the Queen's arrived

and walking in with Pierpaolo,

Dame Joan Collins who I think epitomizes

the word Camp.

this was her Met Ball

so I think she was winner of that hands down.

This hair, I decided for this Valentino look,

first if all it was gonna be short hair,

no, no, no.

Then it was gonna be an afro hair,

no, no, no.

And then we decided to have 40 inches of hair.

We wanted long hair.

We thought 40 inches would be perfect.

[Man] Right there, we're in the front, we're in the front.

There it is, hold that, beautiful.

Thank you all for joining me on my Met Ball looks.

I wanna thank you, Anna,

for having me for so many years.

From when I first went to where we are now.

Wow, wow, wow.

Congratulations, bravo, because it is,

it's really an event.

[gentle music]