I Am Iman (Hardcover)

by Iman (Author), Peter H. Beard (Author), David Bowie (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Iman's emergence in 1975 sparked an upheavel in cultural identity that continues today, and her first book is a gloriously entertaining hybrid essay on the cultural-cum-political power of good looks.

A quarter century of the most famous photographs by Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, Herb Ritts, Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, Scavullo, David Bailey, Nick Knight, and many others are contextualized by well-known essayists, a chorus of celebrity contributions, and Iman's own take on her much-mythologized career. The book's outrageous pop design--by graphic designers Barnbrook Studios--makes it plain that this is not just one woman's success story. I Am Iman captures the funny, infuriating, and often absurd validation of black and ethnic looks in a beauty industry where billions of dollars--and the self-image of women everywhere--are on the line.

Peeks behind the curtain and scintillating interviews are courtesy of feminist critic bell hooks, Interview editor Ingrid Sischy, model and manager Bethann Hardison, and such celebrities as Cindy Crawford, Yves St. Laurent, Naomi Campbell, Bruce Weber, Tyra Banks, and many more. With graphic design featuring gatefolds, diecuts, and other interactive elements, as well as specially commissioned, never-before-seen images by Annie Leibowitz, Ellen Von Unwerth, Sante D'Orazio, and Michel Comte, this book is an assemblage worthy of any fashionista's dream.


About the Author

Iman is a legendary supermodel, a cosmetic mogul, and wife of David Bowie.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Universe Publishing (November 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789306336
• ISBN-13: 978-0789306333
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #131,932 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #14 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Other Media > Erotic
  #54 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Erotic Photography
  #60 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Fashion > Fashion Photography

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mixed bag, November 26, 2002

By A Customer

hmmm...just received this yesterday and read through it. Beautifully presented book with unusual editorial and stylising quirks in its presentation. If you are looking for a book that will give you meaty information on Iman and her outlook on life, this is not the one. There is some detail about her early life, but then it explodes into pictures and interviews and different short pieces on the essence of being black and fashion etc. To be honest, most of the subject matter is merely flirted with rather than explored.

The pictures and photographs are amazing and it is a great pictorical legacy for the supermodel that is Iman.

It is a book you will read cover to cover in 2 hours - and something you can go back to, and flick through it again.

But I'm sorry to say I didn't think there was much substance

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poses Essential Question, December 3, 2001

By	Kristin Mernitz (Venice, CA USA) - See all my reviews

If beauty is the business of good looks, as this book claims, then Iman dares to ask the question: whose business is it? Answering that question, or at least trying, makes this book much more important than a quick flip through its classic photos would indicate. Iman's own history, it seems, indicates that centuries-old Eurocentric conventions about what is "fashionable" are now being confronted by the pure demographics of change. As she points out in one of the book's autobiographical sections, the NEW "girl next door" is likely to be Asian or Latina or black. When Iman arrived on the scene in 1975, black models were just beginning to get a foot in the door, but she was a sign of a coming revolution. The message of this book, and there is one, is that this is a state of permanent revolution: perhaps never again will there be "standard" of beauty.
This playful, beautifully-made book throws the question - whose business is it? - right back at us. The answer, I guess, is you and me, the people who buy books from Amazon, the "hegemony." We validate good looks by changing our own clothes to suit an idea. We validated Iman. So then, of course, the challenge: why isn't there even more room for different ethnicities, different body shapes, different styles of clothes? Is there only room for one Iman?
Okay, all that is serious and all, but clothing is also very un-serious. For whatever reason that she became the first black African to become a supermodel, she grabbed hold of that ephemeral, life-affirming pop culture and squeezed it for all the fun it's worth. Jonathan Barnbrook's design is perfect to handle the politics of dancing, and walks a line between fun and fury that is in your face and yet rewards every subsequent reading. Though the essays by bell hooks and others are not terribly academic, I have a feeling this book will be revisited in years to come as being a first step at trying to understand a new global perspective on beauty.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading and viewing, November 8, 2001

By A Customer

I Am Iman is a wonderful book. That it is wonderful to look at won't come as a surprise to anyone. What is a suprise, visually, though, are many of the photographs, all chosen by Iman: of course there are plenty of traditional beauty and fashion images testifying to Iman's career as a singular catwalk and photographic model. (These images make up a fascinating archive for anyone interested in photography, fashion, social history, studio 54, sex, gender, high fashion and race). Much more remarkable, however, are the riskier choices of images. This is not a book which wastes any time at the alter of traditional beauty. Iman shows herself every which way: nude, pregnant, dressed up, and naked, fleshy and lovely.

The book is worth getting for the iconic photograph by Annie Leibovitz of two generations of black models all sitting together. But do not miss the amazing collaboration between Sandra Bernhard and Iman: this shows Iman as a performer unconstrained by vanity (although,it turns out that she looks great dressed up like a drag queen), and it is this Iman - unabashed, unashamed and upfront that is presented again and again throughout this book, both in its images and in its writing.

Yes, the essays by David Bowie, Ingrid Sischey and Bell Hooks are great, but the riveting writing comes from Iman herself. She is an honest and unpretentious writer and she certainly has a lot to say and many stories to tell. She does not put a gloss on any thing that she encountereed or did over her remarkable career, and though the book is not a tell all (thank god), Iman is not shy about sharing regrets, mistakes and ambivalent feelings.

This is not a series of puff pieces about a celebrity. Far from it! Iman's voice comes across as both proud and self-deprecating and most of all, as someone with a wonderful sense of the absurd. The book is an amazing design - I read that Jonathan Barnbrook also designed Damien Hirst's catalogues, and that would make sense, because the book is risky. There is not one single lazy page in the whole volumne. Iman once again has not gone for the banal. This book is a MUST for any library, but better than that, you'll want to keep it on your bedside table.