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Monday, November 12, 2001

By Robin Givhan, The Washington Post

NEW YORK -- Perhaps the biggest surprise about former model Iman's first book is that it is not a beauty guide. After all, she certainly has a base of knowledge from which to speak. When she retired from the catwalk 10 years ago, she went on to found a line called Iman, color products and skin care potions for women of color.

It also would have been understandable had she simply assembled a pictorial celebration of her landmark career, which has been instrumental in helping other black models succeed in the fashion industry.

Instead, "I Am Iman," scheduled for release tomorrow, is more ambitious. It is an artful and sometimes chaotic look at how such diverse elements as popular culture, politics, ethnicity, religion and the business of glamour overlapped to construct her professional and public persona.

"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," she said. "But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry."

The book deals purely with the public Iman. It is not an autobiography. "An autobiography is good if you reveal all, and I'm not going to reveal all," she said over coffee at the Mercer Hotel. "But I've lived here for 25 years and people don't know where I came from, really."

By that she means her background, the elements that create a personality and a sensibility. And central to that construct is the fact that Iman, born Iman Abdulmajid, is African. She is a Somali. She is a Muslim, a "lapsed feminist," a businesswoman.

"I write about Islam. Somalia is a moderate Muslim country, but my religion dictates that this is not a profession I should be in," she said. Among the "last words in the book are 'May Allah have mercy on my soul' if I have sinned."

Iman also underscores the contradictions of the fashion industry. For a business that is global in all of its facets, fashion can be startlingly parochial. It can draw inspiration from the most diverse cultures and yet remain fundamentally ignorant about them. Fashion can be simultaneously articulate and irresponsible in its communication. It can celebrate the power of femininity yet callously chip away at female self-esteem.

Iman speaks to those contradictions in personal ways. For example, she talks about her own breast enlargement. "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," she said.

"At the end of the day, a 34B doesn't give you self-esteem," she said.

Iman took criticism for her cosmetic surgery. As she made her first runway walk with her new figure, one wag reportedly observed: "Here they come."

"I did deserve the lashing," she said.

The book also challenges the industry. "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," she said. "They cater to the masses. They don't enlighten." That is particularly true in embracing diversity, an area in which fashion lags far behind other industries.

While the book features contributions from actress Isabella Rossellini, comedian Sandra Bernhard and author bell hooks, and a foreword written by Iman's husband, David Bowie, its greatest strengths are Iman's reflections on being proudly African -- and blissfully unfamiliar with the hullabaloo over models -- when she debuted at the center of the fashion circus.

"I was 18 years old, which is quite old for an African. You grow up faster," she said. That maturity and "my ignorance," said Iman, "helped me not get caught up in what it was all about."