A glance at Camille Darby’s Instagram might lead you to believe you’ve stumbled upon a beautiful melanin-rich fashion and travel influencer, and while there is truth to that, after further inspection, you quickly realise that there are more facets to her.
When she asked what her occupation was, Darby, the Jamaican-born and New York-raised multipotentialite, replies, “That’s an interesting question.” She then continued, “By day, I am the vice president of brand marketing at Condé Nast’s lifestyle division, and that essentially encompasses overseeing all of the brands in that division, and by brands, I mean titles, publications. So these include Architectural Digest, Allure, Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Glamour, Condé Nast Traveller, and Self. And all of these publications deal [with] different lifestyle categories, hence the division’s name, which [includes] home, travel, beauty, fitness and health, and cooking. These are things that are very essential to our lifestyle.”
Rocking an Afrocentric turban, Darby said from her Bedford–Stuyvesant apartment via Zoom, “Interestingly enough, the way God works, I am so deeply centred and rooted in all of those things as far as lifestyle is concerned, so I’m fortunate and grateful that I get a job where I help to curate and tell stories for these magazines and do that with the intention of aligning and partnering with different advertisers who also want to be a part of the Condé Nast family and be a part of those brands.”
Born in May Pen, Darby migrated to the United States at six with her family, but has never forgotten where she came from, and her success makes her think about how her parents emulate the American dream. For a long time, she tried to understand why her parents left Jamaica because, from her young purview, they had a beautiful home and life, and even if things weren’t amazing, her parents did an awesome job in not making it show.
While many assume the US is a utopia, Darby and many others know reality can be different. “It is not the land of milk and honey, especially for black people.” When her parents moved, they had a different life and were forced to start over. Finding careers and building together, all the while ensuring that she and her sister remained steeped in their Jamaican roots, staying well-mannered and knowing who they were as people … Jamaican people.
“The feeling of gratitude is overwhelming. Everything that they have done and that they have accomplished was so that my sister and I can be where we are in life right now, and that feels really good,” she said.
The influence that being Jamaican has had on her? “I think Jamaicans are the most prideful people, and we have a right to be.” With a smile, she added, “I’m not just saying this because I’m from there, but we are the best in the Caribbean.” She elaborates, “Food, culture, music, everything starts here. When I think about my roots and who I am and how I identify ethnically and culturally, it has had an incredible impact on how I choose to show up in spaces.”
One can’t conduct an interview with someone that works at Condé Nast and not ask about Anna Wintour. Has she interacted with her? Darby says, “yes” with a laugh, but admitted the interaction has been limited, especially due to the pandemic.
When Darby is not at her day job or doling out effortless fashion and travel pictures on social media, she moonlights as a writer with a focus on theatre — creating stories, dialogues, and worlds about people that look like her (black people). Her first play was based on her mother and how she moved to the United States and had an ironclad way of raising her children to succeed. Her most popular and recent was Exodus, which was based on her grandmother, who moved to the states and filed for her children one by one.
If she didn’t have the background in writing, she doesn’t think she would have got as far as she has with Condé Nast, considering her role is centred on storytelling.
She also has written screenplays, and said she is currently working on something, and while she wasnt’t ready to share more on that just yet, we got a feeling would love it.
