The politics of beauty is much deeper than make-up for former supermodel Iman, who was in South Africa this week to launch her cosmetics line.
The Somali celebrity-businesswoman, who has lived in the United States since 1975, spoke determinedly about changing the way the fashion and beauty industry treats black models. She says her experiences of discrimination in the modelling world led her to launch her own make-up range in 1994.
She believes that she “changed the perception of beauty internationally”.
Iman is one of a few international black models drowned in a sea of white faces. Other African models who have made it big and are also running businesses are Oluchi from Nigeria and Alek Wek from Sudan. But it’s not easy to make it if you’re black.
“There are design houses like Prada that haven’t used black girls on their runways for six years. Calvin Klein uses only blonde models. The designers just say they don’t need black models this season, as if we’re not human,” said Iman earlier this week in Cape Town.
“In the United States there were no black models on the runways in 2008 and that country has a black president. It’s always been known, though, that the fashion and beauty industry has been behind the zeitgeist.”
She says that her response over the years has been to refuse photo shoots that framed her as “exotic”.
“I’ve gone to photo shoots and have just said no to certain ways of being photographed. I wanted to make sure that I had control of the images. It’s not how they see me but how I am. Why is it only about ‘exotic’ then black girls are hired? Why are we a category when we are like everybody else? Black girls still face these challenges.”
Business minded response
Iman’s business-minded response to a beauty industry that doesn’t have much space for black women has been to create products for the disenfranchised. Her products are for girls who are not white, as it “celebrates ethnic skins”.
“The idea of Iman Cosmetics came to me when I arrived in the United States in 1975. On my second day in New York I was working on American Vogue. A make-up artist asked me a very perplexing question. He asked if I brought my own foundation [to the shoot]. There was a Caucasian model there and the make-up artist didn’t ask her that because he had something for her. He didn’t have something for me. I had just arrived from Nairobi and had never even used make-up. I had majored in political science. The politics of beauty was not lost on me that day.”
Caucasian version
That politics continues in the beauty industry. Iman explained that when make-up artists talk about beauty tips they’re often discussing ways of making all models look white. “They talk about how to make a black women’s nose look slimmer or an Asian woman’s eyes look bigger. That’s a Caucasian version of what we should look like. The mission behind Iman Cosmetics is that we should be celebrated for who we are.”
Iman says her range speaks to a “large group of women who are not seen as beautiful” as they’re ignored by most fashion magazines. “When we look at beauty magazines we look at versions of ourselves as Caucasians because that’s supposed to always be right. Caucasians are always perfect. If young kids constantly see white women in magazines they feel that they are not good enough to be there,” she explains. “But hip hop has changed the fashion and beauty industry. When it came on the scene people looked at the videos and saw young girls that don’t look like groups they have seen. They are mixed girls. Today’s kids don’t understand the world as black and white but magazines still need to portray that language.”