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Supermodel Iman one of 50 Sexiest Women Over 50 recently sat with Parade to discuss beauty, aging, and the modeling industry. The Somalian stunner was perhaps a bit too candid while discussing her understanding of beauty, but she really meant everything in the best possible way. Of First Lady Michelle Obama, who generates press for her fashion and makeup choices on a weekly basis, Iman said:
Mrs. Obama is not a great beauty, but she is so interesting looking and so bright. That will always take you farther. When you're a great beauty, it's always downhill for you. If you're someone like Mrs. Obama, you just get better with age.
Hopefully Mrs. Obama recognizes the compliment beneath the unintentional barb.









Model Iman and Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief Glenda Bailey attend the 25th annual Infinity Awards at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers.
Iman, now 53, is no longer a working model. She founded a skin care line several years ago for women of color, having been frustrated by the lack of cosmetics options for her skin tone available on the market. Finding the right tone of foundation wasn't Iman's only challenge as a black woman in the modeling industry, however. She says she often felt marginalized in more than one way:
I did feel a bit ostracized. You suddenly represent a whole race, and that race goes, ‘Well, that person does not represent our ideals of beauty.’ For lack of a better term, it becomes what it was like during slavery. One had the field n— and the house n—. There was this notion that I was chosen by white fashion editors to be better than the rest, which I am not. I did not like being thought of as the house n— whether it was spoken or whether it was understood. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. I call it ‘the politics of beauty’ because fashion can sometimes be an assault on one’s identity.