Super EVERYTHING

MODEL. ACTIVIST. ICON. The WORLD has spent more than THREE DECADES trying to DEFINE NAOMI CAMPBELL. But she'd rather DO THAT for HERSELF.

- OTEGHA UWAGBA

An important part of the mythos surrounding Naomi Campbell-supermodel, activist, fashion icon, occasional hothead-lies in her origin story. You probably already know it by now, but just to recap: Campbell, 15, a schoolgirl hailing from the fairly unremarkable streets of London's Streatham neighborhood, was spotted by a model scout while out window-shopping in London's West End. It's a story a world away from how most successful models these days seem to be discovered, either scouted via Instagram or ushered to the front of the queue by virtue of their famous parents. Between her and fellow '90s icon (and close friend) Kate Moss, Campbell was responsible for a generation of British teenage girls trying our best to look "modely" as we wandered around the big Topshop on Oxford Street, hoping we too might be "spotted" while out shopping on a Saturday afternoon.

Campbell's backstory makes it seem like a chance encounter was responsible for changing the trajectory of her life, as though hers is some sort of "right place, right time" Cinderella story. But then, as you're sitting opposite her in a hotel suite in a discreet European location, you realize that with a face like hers-those formidable cheekbones sweeping upward as though in tribute to the celestial beings that must have played a role in their creation and those plump, perfectly proportioned lips-Naomi Campbell was always going to be famous.

"I've been asked to write a book by literally everyone," she tells me, settling into a sofa. The prospect of a Campbell memoir is tantalizing-one wonders what her version of the many tabloid headlines that have been written about her might be-but so far she's held off. "It's time-consuming," she explains, and anyway, she doesn't want to use a ghostwriter. She'd rather tell her story herself.