Iman says makeup artists didn't have foundation for Black models on her first Vogue shoot
Supermodel Iman, 67, is a pioneer in every sense of the word. A muse for such designers like Gianni Versace, Calvin Klein, Halston, Yves Saint Laurent and more, the Somali-born beauty changed the landscape of the fashion industry after making her debut in Vogue in 1976.
Still, despite her iconic status, Iman says she was never immune to the industry's standard of tokenizing Black models in an era when there were so very few.
As she told Gayle King in an interview for CBS This Morning on Monday, she recognized the lack of Black representation early on after booking her first job in New York City with Vogue magazine.
"The first job that I booked was American Vogue [at 20 years old], literally the third day I arrived in New York, and I had never worn makeup before," she explained. "The makeup artist — there was a caucasian model on the set, he did have makeup [for them] — when he approached me, he said, 'Did you bring your own foundation?' because he didn’t have anything for me."
"I was so young and new in the industry," she said. "It felt like something was amiss. Something was wrong."
Iman speaks of her experiences openly in the six-part YouTube documentary Supreme Models, highlighting the experiences of Black supermodels in the fashion industry.
Looking back, she can't help but acknowledge how she and others felt tokenized simply because they had darker skin. In many cases, as she explained to King, there was typically one slot available for a Black model, which created unnecessary division among her peers.
"They were creating tokenism," she says of the industry. "They create the idea that you have to dethrone the other Black models so you can have some space."
With the help of fellow supermodel Beverly Johnson, Iman decided to help shift the way people view Black models both behind the scenes and in front of the camera.
"I was majoring in political science [at the time], so I come from that mentality: that as as group, as a tribe, we're more powerful than single [individuals]," she said. "So I teamed up with Beverly Johnson and we became best friends, and so we took, we got rid of that tokenism immediately."
Iman and Johnson's work surely led to more diversity on the runways.
Speaking to W magazine in September, Iman explained that, as more Black voices started to demand more representation, fashion leaders were quick to evolve leading into the 1990s and 2000s.
"When it came to Black models, it wasn't just less, it was a total absence," she said. "Once Bethann [Hardison], Naomi [Campbell] and I started talking to the press, writing letters to the CFDA [Council of Fashion Designers of America] and designers in Europe, and making it really public, a bit of change started to happen."
In recent years, she says people have demanded to see more diverse models on the runway thanks to social media.
"What social media has given to Black models is a platform, and every model is grateful for that," she said. “There are models who were discovered on social media, and that takes some power away from the casting agents. People are looking outside of the box, and that leads to more diversity. And that brought in a lot of other kinds of diversity – body positivity, different heights. The standards were removed. The change was visible. Look at how the beauty of the world is showing up on the runways."
Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life’s newsletter. Sign up here.
