Quotes from Iman

There are highlights when you become irreplaceable as a model, like when you become a muse to designers. They look at you differently; you're not a coat hanger for hire.

I'm always criticised by other Somalis and Muslims for what I'm doing as a model and married to a white man and all that.

My given name was Zahra, which is the 'flower of the desert.' I don't look anything like the flower of the desert. My name was changed by my grandfather to Iman, which means 'have faith.' And it meant to have faith that a daughter would come.

I was born in Somalia, which is in East Africa. My parents started with nothing: poor, poor, poor. They eloped, which was unheard of in my country, when my father was 17 and my mother was 14.

I did not want to get involved with a rock star. No way. It is not a sane thing to do.

People get numbed when they see picture after picture, year in and year out, of people starving.

I started the cosmetics in 1994 after I stopped modeling, out of my frustration as a woman of color not finding what I needed.

One afternoon, on my way to the campus - I was majoring in political science at Nairobi University - a photographer by the name of Peter Beard stopped me in the street and asked me if I'd ever been photographed.

I arrive in New York on October 15, 1975. On my own, by the way.

We never do Valentine's dinner, because everybody, they look. On Valentine's, imagine me and David going to a restaurant! Like, everybody's going to say, 'Did they talk? Did they hold hands?' Twenty years. We've been married twenty years!

I beg you, don't use the verb, 'discover', I hate it. What does it mean, that I didn't exist before?

I have been a muse to Mr. Saint-Laurent, Valentino, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Versace.

I was a very nerdy child. I never fit in, so I became laboriously studious.

I was studying political science; I was adamant that I was going to follow in my father's footsteps.

People called me 'Iman the black model'. In my country, we're all black, so nobody called somebody else black. It was foreign to my ears.

We are very private, so we decided from early on that we will keep the press and editors and everybody out of our house.

I wanted a bronzer so I could look like I just came from Ibiza everyday.

in a world full of trends, i want to remain a classic

Offers herself up whole, without conflicts, a woman who is many things, all at once.

It ain't a vision if it's not conceivable in 20 years it was a hunch

Don't be afraid to walk away from things that are just not right for you.

Modeling gave me so many experiences, like traveling and being exposed to global cultures, but the most valuable lesson has been working with designers who truly are visionaries in their field.

My father... gave me a positive connection with men because he is a gentleman.