Kim Kardashian's New Campaign Celebrates Stretch Marks & Cellulite

Between nearly nude campaigns for her latest makeup collection and a perfume bottle sculpted to mirror her naked form, Kim Kardashian West has never been shy about celebrating her body.

But on Friday, Kardashian West surprised her fans when she shifted that level of body confidence and pride onto women who have bodies unlike her own. The reality star and mogul tweeted to her 59 million followers images of nude women with visible cellulite, belly rolls, and stretch marks.

With the captions "#KKWBody," the images mirror those from her own KKW Body campaign last April, which featured Kardashian West lying around fully nude and were quickly criticised for not being inclusive of all body shapes.

While fans are still in the dark as to what these new images are for (a new KKW Body fragrance, perhaps?), they're already forming their own opinions — and it's split. Many fans reacted with glee: "Every body shape is beautiful, thank you for sharing these photos," one commenter wrote. "It’s so important for people to see these." But others weren't as kind, with one person responding with the harmful argument, "So promoting being unhealthy and increasing dying risks is supposed to be normal?"

That reaction isn't surprising to body-positive blogger Carmen Rene, who went viral back in May when she put her own body-positive spin on Kardashian's KKW Body campaign. "They’re gonna face a lot of backlash for posting these images," Rene tells Refinery29. "I think people don't like to see relatable bodies, whether it’s fat or stretch marks or whatever. So they took a risk and I commend them for that."

Rene's images, which Kardashian West retweeted at the time, weren't meant to serve as a criticism of the star, but to add to the narrative in a healthy way. "I just remember sitting at home and she had just posted this picture and I was like, Oh my god, her body is so perfect," Rene says. "But what is perfect? We all have bodies that are worthy of holding in a high regard. The picture wasn't a knock on her, because I really admire her body, but at the same time I totally admire my body, too."

Rene's first reaction to seeing the images on Friday was genuine happiness that Kardashian West was finally using her massive platform to spread a more body-positive message – but, deservedly, she's also giving herself some credit.

"I did try to get in touch with her team and thought it would be a good idea to use this momentum to have this conversation around different bodies and misconceptions around what is beautiful in our society and what our perfect body is," Rene, who noted that Kim's team never got back to her at the time, says. "So, I have to think that what I did helped move this along, and that makes me feel good."