Editor’s Note: Delving into the archives of popular culture historical past, “Remember When?” is a NCS Style collection providing a nostalgic have a look at the celeb outfits that outlined their eras.
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What do they are saying about all publicity being good? When the world noticed Naomi Campbell fall on the Vivienne Westwood runway, the supermodel was quickly inundated with calls from different designers — asking her to do it once more.
It was an iconic second in vogue historical past: Vivienne Westwood’s “Anglomania” present in Paris, March 1993. Campbell was 23 when she took the tumble, sporting a pair of the designer’s “Super Elevated Ghillie” platforms that measured about 21 centimeters (8.2 inches) in heel peak. (The model nonetheless sells a related pair for $1,125.)
The towering sneakers, product of vivid blue imitation crocodile pores and skin and mounted with silk ribbons across the ankle, have been inspired by types from the 18th and nineteenth centuries. Campbell’s well-known pair, now housed in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, are clearly identifiable: Her identify, “Naomi,” is scrawled on the inside sole in blue ballpoint pen.
“It looks like you could’ve broken both of your ankles… that was a nasty, nasty fall,” said David Letterman when Campbell was a visitor on his speak present, criticizing how nobody got here to the supermodel’s rescue on the time.
Campbell, who performed off the accident with a smile, agreed with Letterman’s commentary. “No one moved, no one moved a muscle in their face,” she mentioned. “They were just nervous until I started laughing, and then they started laughing too.”
The mannequin has since mentioned that the autumn had much less to do with extortionate heel peak, and extra to do with the pair of white rubber stockings she was sporting. In a 2024 video recounting the incident — dubbed her “Great Fall” — for British Vogue, Campbell defined that she couldn’t really feel her ft or toes within the stockings.
Similarly, in a conversation between Campbell and Westwood filmed for British Vogue in 2019, the designer additionally positioned blame on the stockings. “The reason you fell is because you had these rubber tights… and your thighs caught together and so you wiggled on the shoe. And you’ve only got to wiggle slightly and you’re over,” recalled Westwood, who likened Campbell’s “beautiful” fall to that of a gazelle.
“I was embarrassed… also it was not the right time of the month for a woman to fall,” mentioned Campbell throughout their trade, including that she felt she ought to have practiced strolling within the sneakers extra.
After her preliminary descent, the mannequin went backstage and tried the runway as soon as once more, demanding that Westwood come and retrieve her if she fell a second time. This time, the stockings have been off, and Campbell was given a strolling stick to assist her — although she refused to make use of it and held it at her waist as a substitute.
The subsequent day, Campbell visited a newsagent in Paris with a group of fashions together with Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista to purchase the British papers reporting her fall. “We were just howling,” she recounted of the pictures detailing her tumble, step-by-step.
Not lengthy after, the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired the sneakers to grow to be a part of their everlasting assortment. Elizabeth Murray, a curator on the museum, mentioned in a video that somebody from the V&A’s textile and vogue workforce obtained in contact with Westwood “almost immediately” after Campbell’s fall was seen world wide — recognizing it to be a historic second.
In a newspaper clipping from the acquisition file for the shoe, the late Queen Elizabeth II reportedly noticed them on a go to and mentioned she wasn’t stunned Campbell fell in them, added Murray. Her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, mentioned they appeared like somebody was strolling on stilts.
Though the platforms turned the star of the present, different components of Campbell’s ensemble, which included a vivid pink feather boa and a Scottish impressed kilt, have been additionally made well-known by the autumn. The kilt’s tartan, referred to as “Westwood Gordon Pink” was woven for the designer by Scottish producer Lochcarron and has a itemizing on the Scottish Register of Tartans, an official authorities registry. “Naomi Campbell famously had a fall on the catwalk whilst wearing a skirt of this tartan,” reads its entry.
“There’s about 2,000 pairs of shoes in the V&A collection which span about 3,000 years of design — but no doubt these are possibly the most requested and most well-known pair of shoes in it,” mentioned curator Murray. She famous that platform sneakers have existed all through historical past and have been Westwood’s method of fairly actually “putting women on a pedestal” and elevating their standing.
Looking again on the autumn, Campbell doesn’t appear too fazed. She was quoted by the V&A, which hosted an exhibition celebrating the mannequin’s career earlier this yr, saying, “That fall is part of me, so I own the fall. It’s OK, people make mistakes. The most important thing for me is just getting up and doing it again.”
On her Letterman look again within the Nineties, she additionally boasted that the autumn led to her reserving two commercials. The V&A sell memorabilia magnets of the second Campbell fell down (they’re presently bought out) and the mannequin even sported the sneakers as soon as extra on The Jonathan Ross Show, the place the host stunned her with the precise pair in 2013 (she stumbled for a second, however managed to finish her stroll).
So, would Campbell ever fall on the runway once more, as requested by media-hungry designers all these years in the past?
As she recounted to Westwood, “I said absolutely not, it goes against everything that I stand for. I’m not falling purposefully.”