The secret to a sustainable wardrobe? “What works for me is anything that I can I fit into these days,” Iman jokingly revealed to EBONY at Housing Works' 2023 Design on a Dime benefit at the Metropolitan Pavillion in New York City.
Curating eco-conscious style has become a way of life for her 22-year-old daughter, Alexandria Zara Jones. "She has never asked me to take her to Louis Vuitton or Prada,” the supermodel mother declares. “She does thrift shops and vintage—that's all she wants.”
Iman was one of the night’s honorees at Housing Work’s ninth Groundbreaker Awards Dinner, along with power style couple Adair Curtis and Jason Bolden. The nonprofit that provides services for a marginalized community annually honors outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to the fight to end HIV/AIDS and homelessness. Iman, who is the global advocate for the humanitarian nonprofit CARE, still remembers how the AIDS epidemic devastated lives in the 1980s.
"We saw so many of our friends in their twenties die,” she exclaimed. “Housing Works really became a refuge to them. I love that they help people affected with AIDS, but also the homeless. In New York, all you have to do is get out your door and you witness it. Housing Works has been on the block from day one and stayed [committed]. This is truly a New York organization that I love to support.”
Housing Works' services include mental health wellness, and Iman has a secret for that as well. “You really have to give yourself a time-out. We do that with our children. But we forget that we have to do that for ourselves.” She suggests getting together with friends instead of just texting them, or taking yourself out to a restaurant, massage or movie. “These are not vanities, they are really about sanity,” she advises.
If you listen to Iman, she will also advise enjoying a quiet evening. “Let me tell you something, I'm going to be 68 in July,” she declared. “There is nothing you're gonna miss by staying at home for a couple of nights.”
.
