It might surprise you to learn that, when you meet Iman, the first thing you notice is not her face.
Of course, it’s extraordinary. It is the face that, ultimately and rather quickly, catapulted the supermodel, activist, actor, entrepreneur and, more recently, executive producer to global stardom. (Her very first fashion shoot, in 1976, was with US Vogue, no less.) Still, it’s not enough to detract from the first thing you do notice about Iman: her voice. Husky, sultry, melodic and teeming with expression, it is captivating. And when she speaks, you listen.
She is sitting, with swanlike poise, in the living room of the Catskill Mountains house she once shared with her husband, David Bowie, who died in 2016. Outside the window, the New York State forest is turning rusty. “Oranges, reds…” she says. “It’s so beautiful.” Inside, the space is pared-down, punctuated with pops of colour and texture: a lesson in restrained, relaxed luxury.
Our interview – and Iman’s first ever British Vogue cover – comes off the back of her work as executive producer on Supreme Models, a new six-part YouTube documentary series. Inspired by the Marcellas Reynolds book, subtitled Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion, it follows a vanguard of Black models who not only changed the industry but helped reshape standards of beauty beyond fashion. There’s Iman, of course, plus Donyale Luna, Naomi Sims, Beverly Johnson, Roshumba Williams, Naomi Campbell, Joan Smalls, Cindy Bruna, Karen Alexander, Aweng Chuol, Veronica Webb, Halima Aden, Duckie Thot, Pat Cleveland, Tyra Banks, Adut Akech, Adwoa Aboah… the list really does go on and on. It is an extraordinary testament not only to the power of the Black model but also to the work that had to be done to keep the door to the fashion world, at the very least, ajar.
But we’ll get to that. For now our conversation centres around the contraption on Iman’s left arm. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” she says, leaning in close as she smiles mischievously, eyes dancing behind her reading glasses. “I broke my wrist. I had a heavy, big cast for eight weeks. It has just come off, and [the doctors] told me, ‘You cannot use your hands.’ Nadine [Ijewere, Vogue’s photographer] had seen through the years just how expressive I am with my hands. And then all of a sudden,” she says, with a pause for dramatic effect, “it was only one hand.” She cackles as she exaggerates comically fabulous poses.
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