IMAN ON RACISM IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY, DAVID BOWIE AND MORE

Posted by Bengtsson on September 10th, 2015

Fern Mallis kicked off her fifth year of "Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis" at NYC's 92Y with a bang last night—she brought out supermodel-turned-makeup mogul Iman for a Q&A session on topics ranging from her turbulent childhood as the daughter of a Somalian diplomat and being discovered on the street by photographer Peter Beard to her battle against racism in the fashion industry and her marriage to David Bowie. Read on for the highlights from the chat.

On her age: We all have friends and loved ones who say 60's the new 30. No. Sixty's the new 60.

On having a Somalian boy's name: The Somalians cherish their sons. but for five generations my family had all sons, no daughters. My given name was Zahra, which is the "flower of the desert." I don't look anything like the flower of the desert. My name was changed by my grandfather to Iman, which means "have faith." And it meant to have faith that a daughter would come. I've been teased my whole life about that but I've literally grown into my name. But my daughter is called Alexandria Zahra Jones.

On her childhood: We were very, very poor but somehow as children we never experienced it. We were never hungry but that's what we came to know. [My parents] were both very political and doing two, three jobs at the same time so that's the environment I grew up in. They encouraged education, especially for me, as a Somali Muslim girl, because that would propel me to any height.

On her mother sending her to boarding school: I resented my mother for it and we really had a tough go, but then i found out she sold all her jewelry to pay for my education. That was the best school for girls in my country.

On living as the daughter of the Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia: I studied in Italian when I was in boarding school, so overnight when we moved to Saudi Arabia we were taught in English. I speak five languages besides mine. I went to school in Egypt because girls weren't allowed to go to school in Saudi Arabia. It's very restricting, especially for girls, we're not allowed to go anywhere.

On becoming a refugee from Saudi Arabia: Imagine: we have our own chauffeur, our own car, we're going everywhere with security, as [the family of the] ambassador. Then Somalia had a a revolution and it became a military regime. All embassies were closed, and all of a sudden people my father worked with disappeared. So my mom decided, 'Why would we wait for that to happen?' So, in the middle of the night, she gets a van, puts us in with nothing but the clothes on our backs and we drove to the border of Kenya and crossed on foot. I literally have two pictures of myself growing up. I am the face of the refugee. The refugees are, 99% of the time, people who have left their countries for fear for their lives. It's not people who want to come to other countries and be pariahs. That's not what a refugee is.

On being discovered by Peter Beard: I was walking to [my job as a] waitress and Peter Beard appeared and started talking to me and asked my name and I thought he was trying to pick me up. He followed me and asked, have you ever been photographed? And I'd never seen a magazine in my life—except my brothers were teenagers and they had Playboy. And I said, "I'm not that kind of girl." He talked about his profession and I didn't pay attention and then he said, "I'll pay you," and then I stopped. He said, "How much?" I said, "00." (That was two year's tuition.) And he said, "OK." I brought two girlfriends, he took the pictures, I thought, "That was an easy job, ,000." He wrote me a check, I cashed it immediately.

On being naked from the waist up in the photos: I definitely looked at those as art. First of all, you couldn't see my nipples. And I chose them because he showed them to me. And he's still my favorite photographer because he saw in me what I have never seen in myself. And I don't know how he saw it.

On how she came to New York: "One of the pictures he took was on an invitation and Wilhelmina [Cooper, founder of Wilhelmina Models] saw it. [Beard] said, "Oh, she's in Kenya" and he said, "Let's call her." Half the stuff she said I couldn't understand. She said, "Come to New York, you can have a business, you can make 0,000." I said, it has to have a return ticket. I still have the ticket. [But] I always planned to come home. I was married. I was not 18 so I could not leave the country without the permission of my parents or my husband (pfft, my husband, that was gonna go anyway). My mother was so upset with me. It was my parents. My parents would never sign a paper for me to go to America. So I forged. I said, "I'm a refugee, I don't have a birth certificate."

On finally coming to New York: I arrive in New York on October 15, 1975. On my own, by the way. Three months before, Eugenia Sheppard wrote a full-page article with a picture of me by Peter Beard in the New York Post and she writes that I was discovered by Peter Beard goat herding. I was like, 'what?' It said, "She doesnt speak a word of English."

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