Iman: Not Just Another Pretty Face

THE supermodel Iman hasn’t walked a runway in 21 years. Yet at almost 55 years old, with that famous Modigliani profile and copper-toned skin, she’s as gorgeous as ever.

At a recent lunch at Barneys New York given in her honor by the store’s creative director, Simon Doonan, Iman glided among friends that included her contemporaries Stephen Burrows, the designer, and Pat Cleveland, the spirited model of the 1970s and ’80s. As guests like the designer Rachel Roy and the television anchorwoman Christiane Amanpour sipped Dom Pérignon, Iman strode in on the arm of David Bowie, her husband of 18 years. She wore a black sheath and black pumps and clutched the black alligator Kelly bag Mr. Bowie gave her years ago.

Outside, the store’s windows displayed legendary fashion photos of Iman along with quotes, like one from Diana Vreeland, who once uttered: “Now, that’s a neck.”

That neck, and all that went with it, first captivated top designers when the Somalian beauty, born Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid, was plucked from her university studies in Nairobi by the photographer Peter Beard and brought to New York to model for the likes of Halston and Calvin Klein.

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