TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Iman's official site
• Q & A with Iman
• Article on Iman

E-mail a friend

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Iman to this program. The supermodel turned cosmetics mogul is the CEO of Iman Cosmetics, fragrances and skin care. The company has been a tremendous success, celebrating its 10th anniversary last year. Her latest project, though, is a new book called 'The Beauty of Color: the ultimate guide for skin of color.' Iman, nice to have you on our TV program.

Iman: Oh, thank you ever so much.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. You dedicate this book to, first of all, to your two daughters.

Iman: Yes.

Tavis: Who you say march to a new world beauty beat. They march to a new world beauty beat. So I assume since you said that, there must be a new world beauty beat. So what is that?

Iman: Multiethnic, multiracial beauties who are not defined by any standard. The old standard of beauty that was blond, blue-eyed, what they used to call 'the girl next door,' and I say the neighborhoods have changed. Those girls. And my two daughters are so diverse even within themselves.

My older daughter, Zulekha, her father is Spencer Haywood, African American. And the younger one, her father's David Bowie, so she's bi-racial. And the book is for girls like that. I wanted a manifesto for all women with skin of color, regardless of their ethnicity, to be celebrated equally.

Tavis: When you say that there is this new world beauty beat, and I understand now better what you mean by that. I guess it's one thing to have the beat, but is the world, if we think of it as a drumbeat, is the world marching to that beat?

Iman: I think the world is, and especially the zeitgeist and the popular culture. With the exception, of course, of the beauty and fashion industry.

Tavis: That's a big exception, though.

Iman: Yes, but they have always been behind. Always been behind. They see it in the culture; they see it in the hip-hop music; they see all these girls. When you look at a hip-hop video, you don't know who's who, what mixtures they are, the girls or the boys. But the fashion industry is always very late in catching up with the zeitgeist.

Tavis: That's a fascinating point. What's your sense, though, of how fashion is always behind? We think of fashion as being trend-setting, like music being trend-setting. Nobody, I've never heard anybody say to me that fashion lags behind everything else. We think of fashion, again, as leading the trends.

Iman: No. The fashion follows what happens in the streets rather than fashion actually creating the looks. They don't. Everything comes from the streets. Everything comes from music. Everything comes from what's popular culture and what's underground. That's what moves fashion. They really are not trend-setters.

Tavis: So what is the fashion industry losing out on by not appreciating what you're trying to get us to appreciate in the book?

Iman: For example, in the entertainment industry, the more celebrated beauties nowadays are women with skin of color, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Lucy Liu. Including Cameron Diaz, who's half Spanish. In America, we don't have one model who's Latina, Puerto Rican, any of Latina decent, not even from Spain, who is a top model.

Most of the girls who are top models in the industry are from Brazil. They look more white than Spanish. So that's what they're lacking. They don't get on that. When the whole world have changed their idea on the notion of what beautiful is, they're still in the standard of 10 years ago.

Tavis: So looking at you, this is really a dumb question, but forgive me, so how did you break through? How did Iman get a chance to crash through all that nonsense?

Iman: Fortunately enough, I was a foreigner. Because in America, they are more accepting of anybody who's foreign rather than what's in their country.

Tavis: Why is that?

Iman: I don't know.

Tavis: As I think about it, you're right about that. We celebrate models from other parts of the world, but why not America?

Iman: I have no idea. And people keep on saying to me, well, you always talk about race. It's inherently there. It's subconsciously there. It's always there, you know? So I would be celebrated because they don't think of me as a black. They think of me as exotic. So it's different to them, you know? I'm not African American, so to say.

Tavis: So tell me then why, if I'm a Latina or an African American woman watching this right now, young girl, if I'm watching this program right now and I wanna be like Iman when I grow up. Iman just kind of dashed my hopes by telling me that unless I go somewhere else and get an accent and come back and act like I'm from somewhere else, I might not make it as a supermodel.

Iman: No, I'll tell you what it is, is that you have to define beauty in your own terms and your own standard. If you start to want to look like somebody else, then there is no place for you. You really have to define it for yourself. And you have to be confident within your own skin. And you have to celebrate yourself. Don't look for anybody, I.E., nobody can belittle you. Nobody can say you're not beautiful without your own consent.

So that is where you should start with, with the young kids. That's why there is a Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell, and even Alek Wek nowadays celebrated. So the doors have opened, you know, but the standard of beauty's still very confined, so we have to define it for ourselves.

Tavis: So in this book you give some real basics, some rudimentaries, some rudimentary fundamentals about how to start appreciating who you are, whatever it is you look like. Let's talk about some of the basics that you talk about in the book.

Iman: One question that was approached me my first day at a shoot for 'American Vogue,' on my third day in New York, was a makeup artist asking me, "did you bring your own foundation?' And I found it very insulting that a makeup artist to ask me that. And I say insulting because he didn't ask that to the white models. He asked me, because he didn't have anything for me.

So the first thing about makeup is to look the best that you can be, celebrate what your skin color is, and what your God given features are. So find a foundation that's perfect, suitable for your own skin that celebrates you, rather than alter you, is one thing. In this book, you won't find any techniques to make an Asian eyes look bigger, or an African American's look smaller. I don't believe in that. My belief is that that's what makes us different, and that's what makes us beautiful.

Tavis: Tell me, obviously you have your own line of cosmetics, but even beyond your line of cosmetics, is it your sense, though, that sisters, that women of color can now find what they need when they go to the cosmetics counter these days?

Iman: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Obviously, there was the, there's Fashion Fair. Fashion Fair was built only for African American women. There are a couple of Latina products which are primarily just for Latina women. Similarly, what makes Iman Cosmetics different than other cosmetic brands is that it's the only brand that actually celebrates women with skin of color, meaning African American, Latina, Asian, and multicultural and multiethnic women.

So that's what makes us different. In the existing big companies, what they used to do and what they still do is that they just make with the shades that they have darker, while my brand, we start from us. It's for us, for us.

Tavis: Tell me why it is, here's what I still don't get. It's one thing for them to lag behind. I understand that. So it starts in the streets, makes its way to the suites. I get that. Tell me, though, what sense it makes for these cosmetics companies to understand, which I assume they must know, that they're now operating in the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America and world ever. And if for no other reason, there's a whole lot of money to be made. Why not figure this out? Why be stuck on stupid?

Iman: Because they're still making the money. What they do is that they have celebrity endorsements. They'll have a Beyoncé; they'll have a Halle Berry, Eva Mendes. They have celebrity endorsements. So it has the front that "we have products for you.' So the girls go to the counters or go to the mass-market stores, and they think that the product will be there, but the product is not there. At the end of the day, it's hype.

If you hype it enough, if you claim it enough that you have it, then the people will come and buy it. And if they come and they don't find a foundation, but definitely you can sell them a lipstick, you can sell them a foundation. You can sell them something. And also we have become a celebrity obsessed society, so if there is a product for Eva Mendes, surely I want to be part of that product. So that's what it becomes.

I have solely from the beginning said I'm not going to use a celebrity endorsement. And everybody said, "Well, you're the celebrity.' No, I'm the creator of the line. My brand is that it has to stand on its own without the Iman. The product has to speak for itself. And so, hence, that's what I do.

Tavis: So tell me how you have found, I mentioned earlier the company is successful, but success is all relative. Tell me how you have found the process of working your way into this vast business. Even though you are Iman, I assume it hasn't been easy, though.

Iman: Absolutely not. I have probably close to two or three times almost went out of business. What kept me in business is the customer. The customer has followed me everywhere I've been and every journey I went through in these past 10 years. I have survived it, and I've, you know, I'm fine, I didn't have to close the company, I didn't have to go bankrupt. But I kept, I wanted to keep my company, I wanted to own the company.

Finally, last year, I signed a licensing agreement with Proctor & Gamble, which will distribute my line globally now, and which will, I will be now available to more retailers than I was ever before. Especially the mass-market retailers, where most of my customer shops, whether it's Wal-Mart or Target or Walgreen's, and that's where we are.

Tavis: I hope I don't, don't take this as me casting aspersion on you, but you know the jokes when we think of supermodels. We think that people aren't terribly bright or unsophisticated, certainly un-business savvy. So tell me, because you obviously shatter through all those myths, tell me what you most appreciate about having had the opportunity to be a supermodel, 'cause we've been really tough on the industry in this conversation, but obviously a whole lot of good of it came out for you.

Iman: Absolutely, absolutely. It, first of all, you know, my family was in political exile in Kenya. Yeah, we went from Somalia to Kenya. The Kenyan government gave me a scholarship for one year to fend for myself after that. And when I became a model, I was able to afford to put through, all my siblings through their school, finish their school, take care of my parents, you know.

So definitely it provided that for me, but also what it provided me is a platform that I can use, if used smartly, I can use to better me and to go, "Where is my next step? What is my second phase after I finish modeling when I was for 15 years as a model?' So that's where the platform is there. I'm not saying one cannot get in. It's, we have to invent those places for us.

We really have to. They don't give it to us that easily. They don't. And like everything else, we have to take it. We have to take it, we have to own it, and then we have to be really better and better and reinvent ourself constantly.

Tavis: Two quick exit questions. Number one, you're not at all shy about telling your age. You're pretty open about this now.

Iman: Oh, yeah. I've just turned 50.

Tavis: (laughs) That's funny, ain't it? And you know what? She's not lying. She really is 50. I know you find that hard to believe looking at her, she really is 50. The second thing is, and there have been a lot of stories of late, and I'm not trying to call names 'cause you know the stories as well as I do.

But there are a lot of stories that could scare a parent when their daughter tells them they want to be a supermodel, the drugs, the this, the that, the other. You have two daughters. Would you encourage your own daughters or anybody else's daughters watching, to try to be a supermodel?

Iman: Well, for my daughter, my older daughter works in my company. She has no intention of becoming a model. The younger one, if she wanted to, I definitely will make sure that she finishes school. There is no way that she'll start anything before she finishes school. It is very difficult, but one thing I will impart with parents, because you can't stop them what they really want to do.

But what I will impart is you do not send your child to New York or to Europe on their own, and I don't care whether the agencies say they have chaperones. They don't. You have to chaperone your own child, and not a child of 13, 14, 15 can go in this business. There's a lot of trouble.

Tavis: Well, if your child is lucky, she'll grow up to have just half of the success that Iman has had. Speaking of success, her new book is called 'The Beauty of Color: the ultimate guide for skin of color.' Iman, nice to have you here.

Iman: Thank you very much.

Tavis: It's my pleasure. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and, as always, keep the faith.