Iman (Model)

Generalizing is generally bad business. Unless, of course, you’re talking about people in fashion. They’re all just sooo helplessly self-obsessed. Right? No—wrong, actually. Sure, they might go and make a video about all their good works after they’re done. But they are doing good. As stunning Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek told us when we caught up with her during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, “You can’t just judge it, like, one onion isn’t smelling good and the whole sack is like that!”

Considering the season and everything, we found this recently-shot clip rather fitting. It features 15 prominent people in the fashion industry talking about their favorite charities. From Tory Burch discussing her volunteer work for Memorial Sloan-Kettering to Zac Posen sharing his loyalty to TeachersCount, it may just refashion your view of...fashion.

Tim Gunn wasn’t the only recognizable pillar of style at last night’s Safe Horizon gala. Iman, who is married to skeletal singer David Bowie, was there too! The former model’s towering frame, visually striking as it entered the venue, bedimmed her vintage silver dress and faux fur-lined coat. Glowing as she was, we thought she looked nothing of her 52 years.

Being safe in Iman’s view doesn’t involve a security detail, or even an iron-clad insurance policy. Instead, she said, feeling secure is a state-of-mind, one that exists apart from her own environment. “It’s just the idea of being safe for all children, whether they’re in Darfur or Lower Manhattan,” said the cosmetics queen, whose eponymous line of maquillage had set up a booth at the event. (Several creative-types—from performance artists to interior decorators—were asked to contribute works that convey their notion of safety.) “For me, in terms of being safe, just the idea of knowing, having the freedom that you can live a life without violence, abuse and all of that.”

Continue reading after the jump.  read more »

Yes, I know there's a glut of awards—so I'm presenting my own.  read more »

Also at the Baby Phat show on Friday Night: age-defying Dame Bethann Hardison–African American model from the 1960s, founder of her own pioneering modeling agency, Iman collaborator and confidante, and mother of actor Kadeem Hardison–was a veritable celebrity magnet.

Ms. Hardison, clad in a bare-shouldered summer print dress, was her usual outspoken self.

"I'm doing a forum next week to discuss the lack of the black image in fashion," she said.  read more »