LOL. People.. no need to get into fights over this. Anyway, here's the full article.. There's also a before and after photo of Iman and I think the statement - 'getting better with time' is also true for her. She's more beautiful today than she ever was.
‘Mrs. Obama is not a great beauty,” Iman says, startling me a bit. “But she is so interesting looking and so bright. That will always take you farther. When you’re a great beauty, it’s always downhill for you. If you’re someone like Mrs. Obama, you just get better with age.”
Legendary supermodel Iman, now 53, definitely knows something about great beauty—and honesty.
We are sitting in a chic bistro in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, and her golden, elongated beauty—Iman looks like a Modigliani portrait painted in honey—is swathed in an array of cashmere on this spring day.
See then-and-now photos of ageless supermodels from Iman to Cindy Crawford
For more than 20 years, Iman graced hundreds of magazine covers. She’s now a successful businesswoman with a new line of handbags and accessories to accompany her Iman skin care and fragrance line.
“I started the cosmetics in 1994 after I stopped modeling, out of my frustration as a woman of color not finding what I needed.”
Was it difficult being one of the first black supermodels?
“I did feel a bit ostracized,” Iman says. “You suddenly represent a whole race, and that race goes, ‘Well, that person does not represent our ideals of beauty.’ For lack of a better term, it becomes what it was like during slavery. One had the field n— and the house n—. There was this notion that I was chosen by white fashion editors to be better than the rest, which I am not. I did not like being thought of as the house n— whether it was spoken or whether it was understood. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. I call it ‘the politics of beauty’ because fashion can sometimes be an assault on one’s identity.”
Iman is the daughter of a diplomat, and she and her family became refugees in 1970 after her father’s Somali government fell during a coup. With only the clothes on their backs, the family fled to Kenya. She later studied political science at the University of Nairobi, and it was there that photographer Peter Beard discovered her.
See photos of models-turned-actres ses
“He made up this weird story about finding me in the jungle,” Iman says. “But I had never been in a jungle! I understood what he was doing. I was an accomplice. Everyone, you see, needs a narrative.”
In 1977, Iman married NBA star Spencer Haywood. The couple had a daughter, Zulekha, now 30, and divorced in 1987. Five years later, Iman wed rocker David Bowie. They also have a daughter, 8-year-old Alexandria, who is known as Lexi. Almost a quarter-century separated Iman’s pregnancies.
“God! You’re making me sound even older than I am,” she says, cocking her cashmere beret. “People talk about the miracle of birth. No. There’s the miracle of conception. I did IVF, but nothing happened. So I began to think of adoption, and then I got pregnant. It was definitely a miracle.”
Was it difficult raising another baby so much later in life?
“The difference between rearing a child in your 20s and one in your 50s is one of patience,” Iman says. “I was at the height of my career when I had my first child, and I took her with me around the world. Then I had to root her in school. It was difficult to leave her behind. Now this one thinks she has it tough because both her old parents are at home with her all the time. When Lexi was about 4, she first saw a picture of David as Ziggy Stardust [one of Bowie’s flamboyant stage personas]. ‘Why is his hair orange?’ she wanted to know.” Iman laughs. “The makeup didn’t faze her.
See photos of fabulous Hollywood moms over 40
“David certainly has more of a sense of humor than the first man I married,” Iman continues. “With David, it’s a cabaret from morning to night. We can talk about literally anything—from fashion to religion.”
Does Iman still identify herself as a Muslim, the faith in which she was raised?
“I was never a practicing Muslim,” she tells me. “But I do consider myself a Muslim.” Iman’s first husband was a tall black athlete, and her second, when she married him in 1992, was known as The Thin White Duke. “For a Muslim,” I tell her, “You have rather catholic taste.”
Her laughter is heartfelt. “I do,” she says, continuing to laugh. “From men to books to everything.”
And with that, Iman excuses herself to head off to parents’ day at her daughter’s school.
“Lexi’s class has built a kind of diorama of a Native American village for all us moms to admire. Ah, my glamorous life,” she says with a maternal smile more beautiful—and private—than any she has ever displayed for a fashion photographer’s eager camera.
parade.com
Kamakace
laakiin in Gabadh Soomaliyeed islaan jareer ah oo Baantu ah la ag dhigo damiirkay danqaysaa. Ahey ah!
Waayo? Are they not created of the same matter by the same Al Khaliq, Al Musawir?
