IMAN - How I Was Discovered: Fashion Icon

my family had four generations of just sons and when I arrived they said to have faith in God the daughter shall arrive and so the name email really means to have faith I was raised in Somalia which is a country in East Africa in 1969 my country God had accrued a military coup it was a very scary time so my mother had to come up with the idea once one light that we should flee the country and Somalia has a border with Kenya so she decided that that's what we're gonna go we really started for fending for ourselves for the first time in our lives you know we used to go to school Leadership Forum on car and now we were trying to take care of ourselves so I'm attending narrow B University with two jobs on the side and this man stopped me in the street he asked me if I have ever been photographed and I said of course I have been photographed and he said by what magazine now mind you I have never seen a fashion magazine in my life but there was only one magazine I've seen with my brothers and that was Playboy so I told him I'm not that kind of a girl and so though he said no no no they reserved it's about that kind of a magazine and he said I'd like to take your photographs and I kept on walking and never really paying attention to him okay and I then I stopped and I said how much he said well how much do you want and all I could think of was the tuition of for the university and I said $8,000 and he said agari and of course as we all know it and the man was being here he discovered I wasn't lost to be discovered I always tease him who discovered him so he took pictures of me and the transaction was done and I thought that was the end of left and I went back to my life one day a friend of mine I had no phones I'm in campus and she said listen the guard in a beard said that we should come to my office because they're gonna call you from New York so I went there and waited for his call and he got very excited on the phone and he had Wilhemina I mean agency and they were very excited she saw the pictures and she wanted me to come to New York to be a mom the plane our ticket arrived if I was on a plane and I leave I come to Gotham City New York everybody's talking about oh how exciting this I have imagined it to be this metropolis I arrived and there was a garbage design I have never seen so much garbage in the streets it looked worse like than any African country I swear I thought this is it this is metropolis and so Peter tells me that he has arranged for a press conference so in the next day I am splattered all over the newspapers in the city and I was walking down the street appear going to a restaurant or something and this young girl came running to me and she gave me a piece of paper and she said give me an autograph and I had no concept with an order before so I said what he wanted me to do is she said sign your name for me and I signed and I was wondering what are was she going to do with it so I gave it to her and I was perplexed what did it all mean you know to see your pictures everywhere to see how people treat you when you walk into a room you know how you are your thought of bigger than life because you are bigger than much you are not the size you are in real life pictures is another thing it was all new and exciting and scary because you have to understand at that time in 1975 there was only another black model who was no that was Beverly Johnson so was just me and Beverly Johnson needless to say there are a lot of other black models who were working and doing runway but runway and photography you were totally separate we all see the photography didn't do runway and vice versa this applied to both occasions and not models so I was the one who actually stepped over that line I was the first model who started in photography and the photography and then went to conquer runway you

Channel: Models by Look

Views: 64,410

Rating: 4.9278255 out of 5

Keywords: Iman, David Bowie, Supermodel, Model, Fashion, Beauty, models by look, models

Id: ckEHBHcs48o

Length: 5min 3sec (303 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2013