Naomi Campbell Celebrates PrettyLittleThing Show
● The runway show Tuesday night at Cipriani Broadway featured a surprise performance by Davido.
NEW YORK — Aside from the hourlong wait before the lights went down at Tuesday night's PrettyLittleThing x
Naomi Campbell runway show, the event delivered on multiple levels.
Celebrities, Champagne, surprise musical performance, well-represented casting, historic location, orderly arrivals, polite publicists and design input from two emerging designers — the show covered all the bases. The supermodel's role as host, headliner, designer and participant reeled in many to lower Manhattan for the Cipriani Broadway show. The influencer-filled front row included Emily Ratajkowski, Julia Fox, Lori Harvey, Teyana Taylor, La La Anthony, Winnie Harlow,
Leni Klum, Tommy Dorfman, Halima Aden, Jake Paul, Coco Jones, Jasmine Tookes and Stassie Karanikolaou, among others.
Even the setting — the Cunard Building's Ticketing Hall at 25 Broadway — was a prime place for idleness. Several of the smartphone-wielding guests whiled away the pre-show wait in the Great Hall by taking photos on the mirrored runway, which reflected the 65-foot Italian neoRenaissance style dome above. Klum, clad in a transparent white sleeveless dress, was one of those who made the most of the surroundings as an impromptu photo-op. Although the 19-year-old wasn't game for interviews, she later chatted with security guards animatedly before heading out for the night.
Once the show got underway, models of all different ethnicities circumnavigated the circular mirrored catwalk, crossing paths more than once as beams of different color light flashed across the vast interior. The show's openness to identity and inclusivity to sizing was evident in the casting. But just don't call it diversity. In a recent interview with WWD, Campbell said, “I'm so over the word. This is my point — I feel like so many people just use that word to tick a box, to make sure that they're not called out or anything like that. I don't use that word. For me, it's not about using the word or ticking a box — it's about doing the action, the pure action.
It's giving a part of your platform and sharing it with someone, who is talented.”
The buy now PrettyLittleThing collaboration with Campbell was loaded with options for pretty much any occasion, including a faux leather trench, faux fur jacket, slouchy white pantsuits, bodycon dresses, cutout gowns, sequined minidresses, thigh-baring sheer dresses and slinky jewel-toned dresses. Campbell had called upon two on-the-rise talents — the New York City-based Edvin Thompson and Lagos-rooted Victor Anate — to design a dress each. Campbell's aim with the PrettyLittleThing collaboration is that other brands might use it as a template to accelerate the careers of other young designers.
“I've always believed that you have to share and pass it on. That's who I am as a person. But I don't like my kindness to be mistaken for weakness. I do it as initiatives and I do it around the world.…I love working with new young photographers, young designers and a new generation of models," Campbell said earlier this month.
After Campbell had closed the show by taking the final turn in a shimmery halter gown from the collection, the models lined up in formation across the wings of the runway and Campbell returned hand-in-hand with Anate and Thompson for a final bow. The musician Davido then appeared in a starspangled shirt to perform a few songs as the event's surprise guest as several attendees instinctively rose to their feet to sing along and dance. Harvey, Taylor, Harlow and Anthony were among the first front-rowers to join in. The arrival of two bare-chested male dancers wearing unbuttoned varsity jackets and black pants only amped up the crowd, as did two female dancers clad in Millennial pink pantsuits with bodice-tied backs. As Davido's music and the dancers' agility boomed through the room, shards of prismic light flashed across the crowd in the rotunda. Before calling it a night, Campbell found and grabbed the hand of Bethann Hardison to pull her backstage.
Asked for her take on the show Wednesday, Hardison said, "Naomi hit all the marks for developing a modern collection for the girls out there, who want the look. She has delivered. Adding the two young designers to execute was also on point."