'Mrs Obama Is Not a Great Beauty'

Apparently Iman hasn't goten the memo. We're all supposed to pretend Michelle Obama is some kind of supermodel and fashion icon. Why, even Maxim inexplicably has her listed at number 93 of the planet's top 100 hottest babes, a sure sign their list is worthless.

US First Lady Michelle Obama is not a "great beauty," but will "just get better with age," Iman, one of the first black supermodels, says in a magazine interview.

"Mrs Obama is not a great beauty," the Somali-born model and wife of rocker David Bowie tells Parade magazine's Sunday issue, reflecting on the first black US first lady, who is a lawyer by training and a former executive.

"But she is so interesting looking and so bright. That will always take you farther. When you're a great beauty, it?s always downhill for you. If you're someone like Mrs Obama, you just get better with age," she said.

Interesting looking, sure, if you like women who resemble Patrick Ewing.

Meanwhile, Iman still carries some lingering bitterness from her catwalk days.

"You suddenly represent a whole race, and that race goes, 'Well, that person does not represent our ideals of beauty.' For lack of a better term, it becomes what it was like during slavery," she said.

"One had the field nigger and the house nigger. There was this notion that I was chosen by white fashion editors to be better than the rest, which I am not. I did not like being thought of as the house nigger."