Iman x Harper’s Bazaar UK Feb 2021 Issue
The world’s (and our director’s) favorite supermodel, Iman has been featured on the upcoming issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK’s February 2021 alongside an in-depth interview with magazine Editor-in-Chief and longtime Bowie fan, Lydia Slater. The interview features a series of stunning, awe-striking photographs by Paola Kudacki where she poses in varying lighting and 5 dresses that celebrate her age-accentuated beauty: “I’m African, and we’ve never been scared of ageing. It’s a privilege.”
Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid (originally named Zara at birth) was born to gynecologist mother Mariam and diplomat father/former Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia Mohamed Abdulmajid on July 25th, 1955 in Mogadishu, Somalia. She studied at a boarding school in Egypt until teenage, then moved to Kenya and studied Political Science at the University of Nairobi when her father moved her family there following political unrest in Somalia. There, American photographer Peter Beard discovered Iman as a young student and consequentially, she moved to the US to kickstart a modeling career. Her first gig was with Vogue in 1976. Soon, prestigious magazines started lining up for cover shoots, earning her the title of “supermodel”. Her Somali features attracted Halston, Gianni Versace, Calvin Kelin, Issey Miyake, Donna Karan, and Yves Saint-Laurent to take her up as their muses.
The EIC, Slater writes that when she first video called Iman for the interview, she was nervous but once they started talking, it was like they had “known each other for years”. Iman has been living at her countryside home from where she called in and where she has been indulging in art following in her husband and daughter’s footsteps. There, she enjoys her own company and that of her 14-year-old Cavanese pooch with the famed Bowie-matching blue and brown eyes.
Bowie and Iman first met in 1990 through a friend, married in 1992 and welcomed Alexandria by 2000. She regarded Bowie as a “funny, warm gentleman… he liked more than anything to wear a three-piece suit” against the world’s view of him as futuristic. She is reminded of Bowie’s 5th death anniversary coming up on January 10th but is consoled by his presence all around her and the one hike she took last year when she met a bluebird – a bird known to be associated with him through “Lazarus” (2016).
Slater talks of the many struggles Iman went throughout her career from institutional racism and makeup artists’ flat out inability to match foundation to her skin, the latter of which she faced head on by founding Iman Cosmetics for non-Caucasian or colored-skin women (1994). Alongside this and her Iman Global Chic fashion brand, the supermodel is known for her philanthropic efforts with charity Care. Slater writes of Iman’s feelings about returning to Somalia (were it safe) and the inclusivity and feeling of belonging that she now misses living in the US under Trump’s xenophobic regime. She feels “cautiously optimistic” about Biden and Kamala’s election.
Read Iman’s complete HB interview with Lydia Slater here and leave us your suggestions for content you would like to read in the comments below!
Credit: @PaolaKudacki/BazaarUK
