She is a model for plus-size brand Swimsuits For All

Feb 5, 2015 13:03 GMT  ·  By
Ashley Graham is the first plus-size model to rock a bikini in Sports Illustrated, the Swimsuit Issue
   Ashley Graham is the first plus-size model to rock a bikini in Sports Illustrated, the Swimsuit Issue

The latest Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated will be out at newsstands on February 9 and will feature Hannah Davis on the cover. However, that’s not why people are excited about this new edition: this is the first-ever SI edition to feature a plus-size model in a bathing suit.

The model’s name is Ashley Graham and she is, as you can see in the photo attached to this article, quite a stunner. Raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, she is almost 27 years old and is a US size 14.

A plus-sized model in SI, but don’t get your hopes too high yet

So Ashley is the first plus-size model ever to be featured in Sports Illustrated in a bathing suit, but there’s a catch: she didn’t exactly pose for the magazine, but is rather included in an ad for the plus-size brand called Swimsuits For All, which caters to sizes 10 to 34.

Still, voices online are hailing this as a revolutionary move because it should pave the way for more body diversity in fashion and in the media, and thus banish the notion that only skinny can or should be beautiful and fashionable.

Embedded below is one of the ads for Swimsuits For All, featuring Ashley and 3 handsome hunks who look as if they’d just returned from the gym where they pumped iron. Since we’re talking about realistic body shapes and sizes, perhaps something closer to the real Joe would have fit better.

Healthy is beautiful

Ashley knows she has critics who believe this trend of calling an overweight problem “curves” is just as dangerous as the industry’s obsession with size 0, because it’s basically replacing one unhealthy image for another, whilst saying that the latter is better.

However, she insists, she’s not campaigning for obesity or even saying that her figure is one that women should try to attain. She’s merely trying to say that beauty shouldn’t be limited to one’s weight in the industry: just like a size 0 or size 2, 4 or 6 woman can be beautiful, so can any one over size 8, which is plus-size in the fashion industry.

The only thing that matters in both these cases is health, so Ashley encourages all women, no matter their size, to eat right and make sure to get plenty of exercise. At the end of the day, this is the only thing that beauty depends on: health.

“I know my curves are sexy and I want everyone else to know that theirs are too. There is no reason to hide and every reason to flaunt,” she says of the new campaign. “The world is ready for more curves in bikinis.”