Virgil Abloh and Naomi Campbell shine a light on CIFF’s charity mission

Naomi Campbell will be making a special appearance at CIFF, or Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, a biannual trade show, alongside individual works from Virgil Abloh and Nick Knight.

Abloh, Campbell, Knight and art director Peter Saville have all taken part in Enlightenment, a special project co-curated by Stavros Karelis of Machine-A and Sami Janjer, a London-based curator.

Abloh, Campbell, Knight and Saville have created unique pieces of work for the project to raise awareness for the Little Sun Foundation, a nonprofit organization promoting affordable solar energy. Each piece is inspired by the beauty of light. Abloh has created a limited-edition product while Campbell’s favorite inspiration quote has been painted on blankets. A short film by Knight will be shown at the trade show.

Little Sun aims to provide access to clean and affordable solar light so that children can study at night, women in refugee camps can walk safely and provide a cheaper and safer alternative to kerosene lamps.

“Sami and I share similar views in terms of how we should be supporting important causes, and when I talked to him about this project we loved what Little Sun stands for. The idea was born out of the people around us and how they become an inspiration,” Karelis said.

Campbell said, “So many families around the globe are forced to breathe in toxic kerosene fumes due to the lack of access to electricity. Everyone has the basic right to breathe in clean air and the solar-powered lamps that the Little Sun Project provide can improve their health as well as protect our environment.”

Karelis said the Enlightenment project is all about “inspiration, awareness and innovation. There’s no one better than those people,” said Karelis, referring to the four industry personalities taking part.

“Enlightenment explores the connection between creativity and sustainability, both of which are part of CIFF’s mission. It also represents a first conversation between Virgil and Olaf [founder of Little Sun], where this ultimately leads them is up to them but we feel gratified to have brought them together and enabled them to engage,” said Kristian W. Andersen, creative director of CIFF.