Why Supermodel Naomi Campbell Says She Was 'Nervous' to Take the Runway at NYFW (Exclusive)

Naomi Campbell knows the ins and outs of Fashion Week — but admits she can still get “nervous.”

The supermodel, 53, reveals to PEOPLE that she felt some anxiety when the lights came up on her PrettyLittleThing x Naomi Campbell New York Fashion Week show because she wanted to make sure everyone did well.

“I was nervous,” she admitted after the show when asked about what was going through her mind backstage and when she finally hit her solo catwalk.

“I just wanted to make sure the girls were okay, that they could walk okay, that everyone's going to be strong and poised,” she continued. “I was saying, ‘Strong, strong, strong, strong’ and ‘be yourself, let your personality show.’”

She noted that most fashion shows “don't let the girls show their personality anymore,” but she wanted this one to be different. 

“I wanted them to show their personality, but yet be strong at the same time,” Campbell explained.

The businesswoman said because she was so focused on making sure the models felt confident and comfortable in their outfits, she didn’t have any extra preparation for her solo catwalk to present her latest fashion line, which was co-designed by Victor Anate and Edvin Thompson.

“I was more concerned about the girls, and how they looked and how they felt,” she said.

While she admits she doesn’t come to New York Fashion Week “as much as I used to,” Campbell said she still loves “being here in New York.”

“New York has been a great city to me, it's another home away from home,” she added.

Campbell is next set to star alongside Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington in the Apple TV+ four-part docuseries called The Super Models, which releases later this month. 

The series will go “behind the camera and beyond the catwalk” to see how the ladies “dominated the elite modeling world while illuminating a bond that single-handedly shifted the power dynamic of an entire industry," the streamer teased.

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The project will also contain the not-so-picturesque side of modeling with the icons discussing different challenges they had to overcome to make it to where they are today — including Evangelista being told to lose weight and Campbell being “bullied for the color of my skin.”

The Super Models debuts globally on Sept. 20 on Apple TV+.