By
AFP
Published
May 18, 2009
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

Michelle Obama no 'beauty' but 'bright', according to Iman

By
AFP
Published
May 18, 2009

NEW YORK, May 15, 2009 - US First Lady Michelle Obama is not a "great beauty," but will "just get better with age," Iman, one of the first black supermodels, says in a magazine interview.


Somali-born model Iman said in a magazine interview US First Lady Michelle Obama is not a "great beauty," but will "just get better with age. "(AFP/File/Mandel Ngan)

"Mrs Obama is not a great beauty," the Somali-born model and wife of rocker David Bowie tells Parade magazine's Sunday issue, reflecting on the first black US first lady, who is a lawyer by training and a former executive.

"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," she said.

Iman, 53, also told Parade that her rise to catwalk superstardom did not free her from racism.

"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," she said.

"One had the field nigger and the house nigger. 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 nigger."

Copyright © 2024 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.