Dress, Rami Al Ali Haute Couture; shoes, Zuhair Murad. Photo: Desiree Mattsson
“What I want to do is to be the definition of a supermodel,” Farnoush Hamidian said one evening in Dubai. “The traditional supermodel that we know, who works with major brands; she’s glamorous, chic, and outgoing… all of the things in my country that don’t really exist.” Hamidian was born in Iran in 1988 and grew up in a mountain town in a villa with her siblings, parents, and grandparents. During those early years, the dream of being a supermodel was something that seemed like “biting the forbidden fruit,” given the restrictions around modeling in Iran at the time. While she would eventually begin modeling professionally, Hamidian’s journey would first be colored by trauma.
Iranian morality police initially arrested Hamidian at age 14, for not wearing her veil properly as she walked home from school. The authorities then released her to her father. A year later, three intelligence service officers grabbed Hamidian off the street and eventually raped her. The experience impacted how she approached the career in her adulthood. She began modeling for underground groups in Iran before moving to Germany around age 26. She viewed the profession as a way to reclaim what had been stolen from her in her childhood.
“My modeling career gave me freedom,” Hamidian said. “That itself is the most precious thing that I could ever ask for because it gave me the right, the tools, and the opportunity to express myself in so many different ways.” Her early years working in the European market were met with resistance from German agencies. “There were a couple of major agencies in Hamburg that are quite famous worldwide. I went to all of them, and they all said, ‘Oh, we’re not looking for someone with your profile.’ Whatever that meant.”
Hamidian would go on to be signed by agencies in Germany, Italy, and the UK, while also working in the UAE, and with…
