This is a photo of Iman from Thierry Mugler's S/S 1985 runway show in Paris. She has a close association with Mugler (who has a huge African fetish thing going on back in the day) throughout her career. In fact, her final runway show was for Mugler in 1989.
Iman justifies Mugler's thought process by claiming that it allowed her to become a fantastic showperson on the runway. "He was like an anthropologist, re-creating folk couture. He had black girls with their heads shaved as Masai one season, with extended earlobes made for them - prosthetics for authenticity."
Of this show, Iman said in her autobiography:
I've made many an entrance in my day, but never entered a runway as I did for a Mugler show. For one of his shows, I had two baby leopards in my arms. [For this show] I had a live baby monkey perched on my shoulder... and two gorgeously built black men in thongs walking behind me holding a huge umbrella...There were gasps and nervous laughter, then the roar of applause.
Photographer Eric Boman remarked that "Iman was boldly ethnic" and "made the other girls feel underprivileged not to be from Africa."
Ummm...okay, maybe you just had to be there. I'm curious if there was any criticism of this show in the press at the time but I guess I'll have to get to the library to find that answer. I love Iman and all but if I saw her strutting down the runway with a monkey I think I would have shit my pants.
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