The New York Times - USA (2020-06-25)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020 N D3

1. Unconscious bias was never
   unconscious.

“Of course, it is race-based,” Ms. Campbell
said of the bias in fashion that kept the deck
stacked against the black creators who
Anna Wintour recently conceded had not
been given enough “space” in places like
Vogue.
“But I never expected things to come to
me easy,” said Ms. Campbell, a woman
whom the chiffon warrior, André Leon Tal-
ley, once called “a self-made cyclone of ener-
gy, style and drama.”

2. She dealt with it in the usual way.
   “I knew I had to work extra hard, and when
   I think about it now, I’m grateful to have had
   a lot of strong women in my family showing
   me how to stay strong physically and men-
   tally if you want to survive and strive,” Ms.
   Campbell said. “I’ve always been raised, by
   my mother, my nana, the wonderful strong
   women in my family, from this strong ances-
   try to understand that whatever I was going
   to do, I had to do it 110 percent.”
   Ms. Campbell’s heritage is a combination
   of Afro-Jamaican and Chinese-Jamaican.
   (Her Chinese-Jamaican grandmother was
   Pearline Ming.)


3. But don’t call her a survivor.

“It’s adaptation,” she said. “Back in the day,
I would say: ‘Why am I doing this if I’m not
getting treated the same as my counter-
parts? Why am I not earning the same
money?’ Luckily, I had wonderful people
like Bethann that I would call, and she
would explain to me why it would be benefi-
cial to go forward and do it and we’ll see the
results in the long run.”

4. Maybe say pragmatist instead.

“If I thought things were unjust, I had to say
something,” said Ms. Campbell, whose
record on the subject is somewhat mixed.
True, she was a founder of the Black Girls
Coalition, a group organized to address
race-based inequities in fashion. It is also
true that she once tried to squelch the ca-
reer of a newcomer named Tyra Banks.
“This is to do with me I am talking about,
my career,” she said. “The point is to try to
make the best of the situation you’re dealing
with. I don’t look at it as surviving. I look at
it as life.”

5. She has depended on the kindness of
   strangers.
   “I am blessed with the people I’ve had in my
   life, the influences of their wonderful great
   minds and spirits and beings,” said a wom-
   an whose Rolodex — if people still kept such
   things — would be the size of a tire on a 16-
   wheeler.
   “I think of Azzedine Alaïa and Nelson
   Mandela. I got to meet them, live with them,
   know them, be around them, consider them
   family. You sometimes don’t realize when
   people are here that you could never think
   of the planet without them. Then, when they
   go, suddenly the panic sets in: What do I
   do? Who do I run to?”


6. She found spirituality, but only after
   the drugs.

“What I found is that this strength comes,”
Ms. Campbell said. “All the connections, ev-
erything you ever had with them, comes to
you in another form. They’re still here and
pushing you. When Papa passed away, it
was such a shock.” Mr. Alaïa, the Tunisian
couturier who effectively parented Ms.
Campbell throughout her career, died in
2017 at 82. “I was really thrown,” she said.

“But then this strength came to me from
somewhere, I don’t know, I can only say
from him. I realized I had to do more, help
more, be there more.”

7. She believes in that second A.
   “I’m very proud of my recovery and proud
   to be in recovery and would never hide that
   fact,” said Ms. Campbell, whose much publi-
   cized anger management issues may have
   been fueled in part by chemical depend-
   ence. (Alexander McQueen used to joke to
   friends that they should hide their phones
   when Ms. Campbell came to visit.)
   “We’re not supposed to promote recov-
   ery, but I am not in denial of any of that,” she
   said. “It has been a great help to me in other
   areas of my life.”


8. The steps in 12-step programs are
   more than metaphor.
   “I’m the kind of person that needs struc-
   ture,” said Ms. Campbell, who has an indi-

vidual relationship to time, and who was, for

instance, two hours late for the Zoom photo

session for this article; who was once fired

at first meeting by the producer-director

Lee Daniels for being three hours late to an

audition (an incident that resulted in a

screaming match followed by an acting gig

and an enduring friendship); and who nev-

ertheless must own a very big alarm clock,

since she has somehow managed to rise on

time to be photographed for the 300 maga-

zine covers that have been graced with her

image. “That’s how I function best.”

9. She is a routine queen.
   “I have a routine I kept during quarantine,”
   she said. “Get up, pray, shower, work out. In
   times like this, you need that sense of famil-

iarity and routine to keep your mind and

spirit in a safe space.” You also need, to

judge by Ms. Campbell’s Vogue YouTube

tutorial, a foolproof 10-minute method for

beating your face with skills so refined that

they may give Bianca Del Rio pause.

10. The Federal Aviation Administration
    should hire her.
    “I never made that to go viral,” Ms. Camp-
    bell said of the 2019 video of her flight sani-
    tizing ritual, which has more than 2.9 mil-
    lion views on YouTube and which, though it
    may once have seemed extreme, ought to
    be required viewing for anyone planning to
    board a plane again.
    Ms. Campbell began routinely wearing
    face masks to fly in the early years of the
    century. “In Japan I was seeing everyone in
    these masks, and I thought, ‘This makes
    sense,’ ” she said. Some 15 years on, her
    methodology stops just short of traveling
    with a decontaminating Aerosolizer
    (though she has been seen in a hazmat
    suit).
    “I thought, ‘I can bring my wipes and
    wipe it all down, no insult to any airline,’ ”
    she said. “It was what I needed to do to
    make myself feel comfortable.”


11. She understands that wherever you
    go, there you are.
    “This virus, the lives it has taken, is devas-
    tating, and yet being still, being in one place,
    can be amazing,” said Ms. Campbell, who
    has logged more planetary orbits than most
    satellites. “If there is one thing that I’ve
    learned in this lifetime so far, it is that
    there’s no getting away from anything.
    We’ve got to face our fears and go through
    the emotions.”
    “Many things in life didn’t work out for
    me. It’s OK. I tried. It’s a good thing to be
    able to look at yourself in that mirror, no
    running or rushing about — just me, myself
    and I. At the end of the day, you have got to
    be able to sit with yourself in solitude, or you
    aren’t alive.”

11 Things About Naomi Campbell

CONTINUED FROM PAGE D1

‘The point is to

try to make the

best of the

situation you’re

dealing with.’

“I am blessed with the

people I’ve had in my life,

the influences of their

wonderful great minds and

spirits and beings,” Naomi

Campbell said.

GIONCARLO VALENTINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

When lockdown began a few months ago, as
some women adopted sweatpants and
worn-in tees as a virtual uniform, others
were buying apparel that’s considerably
more alluring: lacy push-up bras, slinky
thongs and other undergarments that are
more characteristically reserved for P.P.E.-
free, socially undistanced activities.
On La Perla’s website, for example, sales
of the Ambra collection, an assortment of
pieces that includes delicate balconette
bras and high-cut panties adorned with
French Leavers lace, increased 200 percent
in the period between April 1 and mid-May
compared with the six weeks that preceded
it.
Figleaves, the British online lingerie re-
tailer, reports that sales in the United States
of its Pulse collection, which includes or-
nately detailed low-cut bras and sheer-back
Brazilian panties, more than doubled be-
tween March and April, and nearly doubled
again between April and May.
Between March and the end of May,
thong sales on Le Mystère’s website more
than doubled compared with the same peri-
od last year. (It’s worth nothing that in the
lingerie business, sales are usually slow in
the weeks after Valentine’s Day.)
More risqué styles proved popular, too. At
Journelle, a lingerie merchant that, until re-
cently, had been selling solely online after
its boutiques closed on March 17, purchases
of its Natalia Ouvert style, a skimpy bikini
with a large open section that leaves little of

the wearer’s derrière to the imagination,

were up nearly 50 percent in April and May

over the two preceding months. The terms

“ouvert” and “crotchless” are now among

the Top 10 search terms on its website.

On the Kiki de Montparnasse website,

sales from March 22 to May 27 of several op-

tions of panties and bras with exposed areas

topped the sales of those styles for all of last

year, according to a representative for the

brand. Fleur du Mal, which designs and

sells lingerie that’s both luxurious and sug-

gestive, quickly sold out of four styles of its

crotchless panties online after its New York

City boutique closed on March 15.

“Anything that’s on that racier, sexier side

— our strappy bondage styles, our open bra

styles, garter belts — is moving,” said Jenni-

fer Zuccarini, the Fleur du Mal founder.

Guido Campello, the co-chief executive of

Journelle, offered an explanation, suggest-

ing that for some couples, confinement may

be encouraging intimacy that is outside of

typical comfort zones. “They’ve gotten to

know each other and gotten a lot closer, and

they’ve gotten more creative,” he said.

Jenni Burt, who heads Figleaves, likes to

think of lingerie as the new “occasion-wear.”

The emotional boost it provides, she said, is

different from what comes with picking up a

T-shirt bra or multipack of utilitarian briefs.

“It’s all about making you feel great from

the inside out,” Ms. Burt said.

Or as Pascal Perrier, the chief executive

of La Perla, put it: “What else can you do

from home actually? Do you buy a Gucci

handbag? No, because you have plenty al-

ready, and you don’t go out. You buy food —

OK, that box is ticked. ‘How about myself?

What can I buy for myself that I’m going to

enjoy?’ ”

That enjoyment can come at a steep

price: Many of La Perla’s bras are around

$400, and Fleur du Mal’s “cheeky” lace un-

derpants, with an especially high-cut back,

are just under $100. But then, alluring lin-

gerie is available at many price points, in-

cluding at mass retailers like Walmart and

Target.

Overall, sales of lace bras increased 37

percent between the first half of April and

the second, according to NPD Group, the

market research company.

“What I think is really happening is that

sexy lingerie is self-care,” said Todd Mick,

NPD’s innerwear analyst. And, Mr. Mick

noted, shopping online is conducive to the

sale of racier pieces.

“You can purchase sexy stuff in the pri-

vacy of your home,” he said. That, he said, is

also driving sales.

For those who are social distancing alone,

buying seductive lingerie is more of an em-

powering indulgence than an amorous ac-

cessory. Take, for instance, Tracy Henry, 46,

a health care executive who has been alone

in her Weehawken, N.J., apartment since

mid-March, working remotely. She recently

bought several ultrafeminine items from

the Journelle website, including a sheer

mesh and lace underwire bodysuit that she

wears during Zoom calls, tucked discreetly

underneath a blazer and jeans.

“The thing of it is, irrespective of our cir-

cumstances and the quarantine situation, I

think it’s really so important to celebrate

you,” Ms. Henry said.

“A part of that celebration is wearing

that,” she added, referring to enticing un-

derwear. “It makes me happy.”

Provocative

Purchases

Sales of lingerie have been

thriving during lockdown.

By RACHEL FELDER

Hmm. Should I

go with the N95

mask, or some

racy lace?

Two items from

Journelle’s Natalia

collection.