In the fevered world of the ever-growing COVID-19 pandemic, in which gouged prices on antibacterial wipes and mobbed supermarkets are the new normal, I have been in my room, in my own world of self-isolation, staring at images of Naomi Campbell. I’ve been watching her YouTube videos about her hypervigilant cleaning. I’ve been looking at her Instagram posts, in which she resembles an extra from Contagion, zipped up in protective plastic suits. In the eye of this viral storm, Campbell might very well be the most sanitised human on earth right now. She’s the embodiment of a luxurious Lysol wipe.
In the middle of this crisis, her Instagram and her YouTube presence have become an alternate germ-free universe of hospital-grade cleanliness and hope. This morning, I rewatched her YouTube episode, filmed in July 2019, titled “Naomi Campbell’s Airport Routine” about her flying routine. The five-minute clip shows a human side of Campbell, buying a bag of Twix and putting her items through a security scanner. It also shows that when she entered her first-class pod, she unearthed a bag of cleaning products, including disposable rubber gloves and antibacterial wipes. At the time, back in the carefree summer, it felt comical to watch this legendary supermodel killing germs on an already spotless plane. We laughed! We meme’d! As she was vigorously wiping down the plane’s tray and the remote, it felt as if Campbell was being overly cautious, an obsessive germaphobe. “This is what I do on every plane I get on,” she said. “I do not care what people think of me.”
A few months later, with some people feeling like walking petri dishes, festering with fear, Campbell has emerged as a purified queen, a disinfected inspiration to us all. Six days ago, just as pandemonium had set in, she posted an image of herself at yet another airport, flying from Los Angeles to her home in New York, wearing a white hazmat suit, pink gloves, and a stiff blue medical mask—not those flimsy kinds!—along with goggles. “All bought on Amazon 6 weeks ago,” she wrote.
She followed up the post with a six-minute video on Youtube, titled “Protecting Myself Against Coronavirus.” The beginning resembles a horror movie, which is now a reality, showing the various newscasts and the rising number of cases. It then segues to the model during a personal acupuncture session in which she opens up about how she really feels: scared. “As this is a very sensitive time in the world, I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m not scared to take this flight,” she says. (In the same video, the supermodel also revealed that she had been doing her deep seat cleaning on planes for 15 to 17 years!) We then see Campbell prepare for battle, zipping up the hazmat suit, a US$15.99 purchase from Amazon, and schooling us about not touching surfaces. “It’s also important to cover your eyes,” she says. “My good friend Linda Evangelista told me about the goggles.” She then tops off the sterile surgical-style look off with a brown Burberry cape.
The cape, trimmed with lambskin, is priced at almost US$3,000. It’s an over-the-top accessory, sure, and ridiculous thrown over a hazmat suit. While I am unsure about this money-pumped addition, Campbell nevertheless leaves us with these serious words: “This is my precaution,” she says, referencing the hazmat suit. “In all honesty, this is not a funny time; it’s not a humorous time. I’m not doing this for laughs. This is how I feel comfortable travelling if I have to travel. If I do have to go, I’m going like this.” Campbell noted that when she sat on the plane in her full biochemical-warfare-ready-meets-Burberry-infused garb, people moved away from her. “I didn’t want to be around them, either!” she quips. In a way, Campbell covering up to self-protect and receiving judgement from others felt close to home. My mother just told me how she merely wrapped a scarf around her mouth and nose during a supermarket run, and people avoided her. Well, good riddance! Naomi wouldn’t care, and neither should my mother, or you! Health first.
While Campbell is dead serious about sanitation, she also wants to give us uplifting messages right now. This past week, she took a walk down New York City’s pier with her godson. The weather was crisp and clear. In an Adidas tracksuit, Campbell was pushing a stroller with the angelic-looking baby, who, unaware of the mayhem, was sucking on a pacifier. In the Instagram caption, which starts off with “Sunday Mood,” Campbell then muses about how the hustle and bustle of New York City during this time has certainly simmered. The lack of human interaction and stimulus, resulting in the city’s eerie calmness, has made her nervous, but has also taught her how to take a breath and reflect.
“I’m learning what it means to put my busy or complicated life on hold and just be still for a while, in one place, with hyper awareness of the people and spaces directly around me and the moment to moment actions I am making,” she writes. “By no means am I thrilled about this scenario we’re all facing, but I am certain that moments like these can be incredibly introspective and reflective, they can help to ground us, and ultimately make us more full, compassionate and mindful people, creating unity to remind us we are all human.” It’s a heartwarming moment that reminds us that precautions, extreme as they may be, should be taken, and at the same time, we should pay attention to the consequences of our decisions and how they could have a domino effect on others. Of course, Campbell posed for the photo wearing, yes, a pair of disposable rubber gloves.
Editor
Liana Satenstein