Ashley Graham is breaking barriers. She's the first plus-sized model to cover the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and she's served as our workout inspiration in a major way. Not only that, but she's a major advocate against body shaming, writing this amazing Lenny Letter essay.
So whenever she talks, we listen. Her latest interview, with Seventeen, shows why she's the best. For example, here she is on how her newfound fame has changed her life.
"You just have to work a little harder," she tells Seventeen. "When you're not in the limelight, it's a little less work, but when you're in the limelight, you have to work hard to stay there. I love what I do and I love where I'm going. I love how the world is changing right before my eyes. I like to say that my cellulite is changing someone's life out there."
And she says that she's already seeing the world changing.
"You've seen curvy women on the covers of magazines, and commercials, and movies," she tells Seventeen. "And I was never even able to say the names of five curvy women I could look up to, and now I can. More than ever, designers are putting women my size on the runway, putting us in their campaigns."
Graham is a testament to how representation matters. We may think these comments are cheeky, and they are, but it's telling that she's gone from having nobody in the media look like her to being an icon of a movement towards more realistic representation. Graham's presence on the cover of a magazine alone might make someone somewhere feel 1% less alone. And that matters.
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