“Beauty is being comfortable and confident in your own skin.”
― Iman
“On a Friday night in 1983, I was in a taxi in New York riding home from dinner with friends. A drunk driver ran a red light and hit the cab, and I was thrown toward the glass partition. I tried to duck, but my face hit the glass, and the impact fractured my cheekbone, my eye socket, my collarbone and several ribs.”
― Iman
“Eliminating the things you love is not wellness. Wellness feeds your soul and makes you feel good.”
― Iman
“If I feel frustrated in a situation, I take a deep breath and walk away.”
― Iman
“Life is too short not to have pasta, steak, and butter.”
― Iman
“Granted, I’ve changed internally as I’ve gotten older – I take it easy, I know when to stop and take care of myself, I laugh much more and with my belly and soul – but this comes from the confidence and acceptance that comes with maturity.”
― Iman
“We all want what every girl wants: to look fabulous while we’re out there ruling the world.”
― Iman
“I suffer from low self-esteem. I had horrible self-esteem growing up. You really have to save yourself because the critic within you will eat you up. It’s not the outside world – it’s your interior life, that critic within you, that you have to silence.”
― Iman
“Change makes you find your calling, your legacy, and God’s divine plan for your life. Don’t run from it.”
― Iman
“Looking good is a commitment to yourself and to others. Wigs, killer heels, Pilates, even fillers – whatever works for you, honey.”
― Iman
“My father… gave me a positive connection with men because he is a gentleman.”
― Iman
“Nobody has ever said to me that I was pretty, ’til I met Peter Beard.”
― Iman
“One afternoon, on my way to the campus – I was majoring in political science at Nairobi University – a photographer by the name of Peter Beard stopped me in the street and asked me if I’d ever been photographed.”
― Iman
“The women I gravitate to are the ones who defy convention and reinvent themselves – hence, they reinvent the world around them.”
― Iman
“That is something that my mother instilled in me at a very young age – to know my self-worth. And I have had times again and again in the fashion industry where all of that was tested and I rose to the occasion because I was told that I am worthy and I should be able to walk away from something that is not worthy of me.”
― Iman
“I have a 15-year-old daughter who thinks that I always had this self confidence that I have now at the age of 60. And I always tell her that what she is going through – the low self-esteem as a teenager – that is a right of passage.”
― Iman
“I don’t do anything by myself. I have a whole crew to get me ready every day.”
― Iman
“It’s really not a good idea to forecast or double guess the fates; you will always be fooled.”
― Iman
“My looks have changed. I have laugh lines – not wrinkles.”
― Iman
“At the end of the day, my legacy will not be modelling but my cosmetics line.”
― Iman
“I believe in glamour. I am in favor of a little vanity. I don’t rely on just my genes.”
― Iman
“I like to get up around 5:30 or six – that’s my favorite time of day. My family is still asleep, and the office is still closed, so I can start my day slowly.”
― Iman
“I arrive in New York on October 15, 1975. On my own, by the way.”
― Iman
“I had never seen ‘Vogue.’ I didn’t read fashion magazines, I read ‘Time’ and ‘Newsweek.’”
― Iman
“We all have friends and loved ones who say 60’s the new 30. No. Sixty’s the new 60.”
― Iman
“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.”
― Iman
“Modeling gave me so many experiences, like traveling and being exposed to global cultures, but the most valuable lesson has been working with designers who truly are visionaries in their field.”
― Iman
“I was studying political science; I was adamant that I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps.”
― Iman
“When I started modeling, they tried to pay black models less than they paid Caucasian models. I turned down those jobs because I knew what I was worth.”
― Iman
“I was a very nerdy child. I never fit in, so I became laboriously studious.”
― Iman
“There is a lot of noise out there. I don’t want to follow the trend – I want to create the trend.”
― Iman
“I can’t stand my legs, for a start, and you rarely see me in skirts.”
― Iman
“The day you settle for less is the day you will get less.”
― Iman
“Multicultural markets are nuanced but not alien.”
― Iman
“I didn’t start exercising until the end of my modeling career. When you’re young, you eat and drink what you want and stay up all night and still look good.”
― Iman
“My ritual is cooking. I find it therapeutic. It comes naturally to me. I can read a recipe and won’t have to look at it again.”
― Iman
“I would rather Google other people than Google myself.”
― Iman
“I vowed to myself when I got married that I would cook every night. I find it very therapeutic.”
― Iman
“As I always said: I fell in with David Jones. I did not fall in love with David Bowie.”
― Iman
“Bowie is just a persona. He’s a singer, an entertainer. David Jones is a man I met.”
― Iman
“People called me ‘Iman the black model’. In my country, we’re all black, so nobody called somebody else black. It was foreign to my ears.”
― Iman
“I wasn’t a major in political science for nothing, so I understood the politics of beauty and the politics of race when it comes to the fashion industry.”
― Iman
“My mother was an activist; so was my father. They came from a generation of young Somalis who were actively involved in getting independence for Somalia in 1960.”
― Iman
“I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile.”
― Iman
“When my daughter Zulekha was born, I was at the pinnacle of my working life as a model, and I pulled myself in two trying to cope with being both a mother and a career girl.”
― Iman
“I’m lucky in some ways in that I really don’t need more than five or so hours of sleep.”
― Iman
“There is no age better than another. The commitment to give of yourself and the knowledge that the time is right are what’s important.”
― Iman
“Mrs. Obama is not a great beauty. But she is so interesting-looking – so bright. That will always take you farther.”
― Iman
“I was born in Somalia, which is in East Africa. My parents started with nothing: poor, poor, poor. They eloped, which was unheard of in my country, when my father was 17 and my mother was 14.”
― Iman
“I was not considered beautiful at all. Really. And this is what all models say. But I’m still not considered that beautiful in my country. I don’t know the beauty ideal where I come from – but it’s not me.”
― Iman
“There are highlights when you become irreplaceable as a model, like when you become a muse to designers. They look at you differently; you’re not a coat hanger for hire.”
― Iman
“I have no intention of ever writing beauty tips on how to make an African-American nose look slimmer or Asian eyes look bigger. That’s degrading. Asian eyes are what’s beautiful about you and what makes you different.”
― Iman
“We are very private, so we decided from early on that we will keep the press and editors and everybody out of our house.”
― Iman
“I have been a muse to Mr. Saint-Laurent, Valentino, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Versace.”
― Iman
“I am so far more secure and more grounded and more know who I am than when I was in my 20s.”
― Iman
“I did not want to get involved with a rock star. No way. It is not a sane thing to do.”
― Iman
“I have a certain manner of speech that is unique to me. I tried once to have my staff tweet for me, and it was a disaster! People knew right away that it wasn’t me.”
― Iman
“On my 50th birthday in 2005, my discount-wielding AARP card came in the mail. I hurled it in the trash, put on something fabulous, and had a decadent meal. Just the thought of putting it in my wallet felt like a concession.”
― Iman
“I can enjoy what I’m engaged in and be fully present rather than planning my answers to questions while someone else is speaking or thinking about my next appointment while my current engagement is still in in progress.”
― Iman
“I’m a very political person, and I think things through clearly, even when I was 18 years old.”
― Iman
“I don’t look like a white woman. I look Somali.”
― Iman
“When I was in high school,we were, like, 4,000 or 5,000 students, and 50 girls – and I didn’t have a date for my prom. My father paid my cousin to take me.”
― Iman
“I started the cosmetics in 1994 after I stopped modeling, out of my frustration as a woman of color not finding what I needed.”
― Iman
“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.”
― Iman
“The difference between rearing a child in your 20s and one in your 50s is one of patience.”
― Iman
“I was never a practicing Muslim. But I do consider myself a Muslim.”
― Iman
“When everyone is telling you, ‘You’re so beautiful, there’s nobody like you,’ you begin to think it’s true. But of course there is nobody like you.”
― Iman
“After the bones mended, my left eye was smaller than my right, and my eyebrow never grew back. But you know what? Big deal. I think I became beautiful after the accident. I became kinder, more aware. I gained respect for other people.”
― Iman
“Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English.”
― Iman
“I beg you, don’t use the verb, ‘discover’, I hate it. What does it mean, that I didn’t exist before?”
― Iman
“You want a career? Do that first. You don’t want to have kids? Then don’t. You don’t want to get married? Then don’t. But once you do something, you’ve got to know that there is compromise.”
― Iman
“We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own culture.”
― Iman
“I’m always criticised by other Somalis and Muslims for what I’m doing as a model and married to a white man and all that.”
― Iman
“I was under 18, and to leave Kenya to come to the United States, to get a passport, you had to be 18. So I lied and said I was 19 to get the passport, because otherwise, I had to have permission from my parents, and my parents would never have let me come.”
― Iman
“We never do Valentine’s dinner, because everybody, they look. On Valentine’s, imagine me and David going to a restaurant! Like, everybody’s going to say, ‘Did they talk? Did they hold hands?’ Twenty years. We’ve been married twenty years!”
― Iman
“People get numbed when they see picture after picture, year in and year out, of people starving.”
― Iman
“I would go to cosmetics counters and buy two or three foundations and powders, and then go home and mix them before I came up with something suitable for my undertones.”
― Iman
“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.”
― Iman
“I’m against a signature look, as that can be very outdating. But having said that, I also know my best qualities, so I’m not going to foolhardily give away my power.”
― Iman
“I’ll be truly happy when we’re not counting the number of ethnically diverse models on a fashion runway or campaign, when having a representation of the entire human race is the norm and not an exception.”
― Iman
“I keep on 5 to 10 pounds above my jeans weight, as the ultimate no-filler-needed refresher, and buy a size up on jeans.”
― Iman
“I’ve always said if what I’m going to create doesn’t look good on everybody, I’m not going to do it.”
― Iman
“I wanted a bronzer so I could look like I just came from Ibiza everyday.”
― Iman
“Intelligence is sexy. Don’t play dumb, especially young girls. Don’t play dumb. And let people see that you are intelligent.”
― Iman
“I thought at 46 years old, I’ve been removed from the fashion industry for 10 years. I couldn’t possibly write a model’s book. That’s for a 20-year-old. But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry.”
― Iman
“I was raised to treat my body as a temple, but even as a little girl, I had a major issue with self-esteem. I thought there was something wrong with the temple.”
― Iman
“There are some people who have helped to advance me and other girls, but the fashion industry is always behind popular culture. They think they understand the zeitgeist. They don’t know anything about the zeitgeist.”
― Iman
“At the end of the day, a 34B doesn’t give you self-esteem.”
― Iman
“I don’t love eating meat. I really only like chicken and fish.”
― Iman
“I tell all my younger friends, ‘Don’t be afraid of change. That is when you truly see what your destiny is.’”
― Iman
“I was admittedly comfortable with Iman Cosmetics being identified as a beauty brand that filled the gap for black women because it was deeply personal for me.”
― Iman
“The people who are the most successful in life are not stopped by fear.”
― Iman
“I believe the universe has great plans for us. When you are young, you don’t learn that.”
― Iman
“When I lived in Egypt, we always wore kaftans. I had cashmere kaftans from Halston. You put on a kaftan in your backyard, and it’s like you’re in Ibiza.”
― Iman
“The truth was I felt ugly growing up. I only really started feeling comfortable in myself when I was 40.”
― Iman
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