How Ashley Graham Inspires Women to Embrace the Body and Love Every Inch of Ourselves

Supermodel and mother of 3, Ashley Graham, posed without clothes for a commercial just 4 months after she gave birth. This was her way of showing that she’d found new power and confidence in her beauty.

Ashley Graham uses her popularity to promote the ideas of love and acceptance of your body. The media call her a body positivity icon. One could say that 34-year-old Ashley is a pioneer in this area because she was the first plus-size model to ever appear on the cover of Vogue.

And even earlier, in 2016, her photo was printed on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Since then, her popularity online has grown incredibly fast.

But she didn’t become popular quickly. She had to walk a difficult path.

Graham got into the modeling business at the age of 12. Young Ashley went to a modeling school where she was praised but her classmates humiliated her, “Girls would call me ’cottage-cheese thighs’ and ’thunder thighs.’ They’d be like ’Wide load coming through. Beep, beep!’ I hated school.” But Ashley couldn’t do anything but tolerate it.

Aside from her classmates, Ashley had to deal with a toxic relationship with her father, “My dad was very critical and harsh. He was physically there but absent emotionally. He thought I was stupid because I had a really low reading level, and I wasn’t good at math.”

Her dad was a “professional” at compliments, and his nickname for his daughter was “Duh.” But the most painful thing she heard from him was when he told her she needed to lose weight to be a model. He kind of devalued all of Ashley’s attempts to love and accept her body.

Ashley’s mother helped her with body acceptance. She remembers, “When I first started gaining weight, she walked in on me while I was rubbing my hip. I told her, with tears in my eyes, ’It just bulges out right here.’ She was like, ’Ashley, that’s just a part of your hip and your butt. If you didn’t have that, you wouldn’t fit into this family.’ Then it kind of hit me. That side butt—that’s what my husband calls it now.”

Positive affirmations were a huge help too, “There used to be a time when I couldn’t say ’I love you’ to myself in the mirror, so I began telling myself affirmations ’I am bold, I am brilliant, I am beautiful.’ I still say them. That’s what gets me out of bed on my hardest days.”

Today, Ashley wears very bold things and doesn’t hide skin imperfections. When Italian Vogue didn’t edit her photos, she thanked them. Also, when she was working with The Cut, Graham asked the magazine’s staff to not retouch her photos. She also apparently told them that if they did do any editing, they should enhance her cellulite — not erase it.

Together with brand Knix, Graham developed her own line of lingerie for bigger sizes. Ashley decided to do this because it was hard for her size (XL) to find something comfortable and beautiful from other brands.

This is why the lingerie developed by Ashley is for women who wear bigger sizes, and the design makes it so that even a strap that might show is beautiful.

Now, Ashley and her husband Justin have 3 children. First, they had a boy, and then they had twins. Fans love the model for shattering pregnancy stereotypes.

When she was pregnant, she didn’t wear shapeless dresses, her clothes were still very bold and attractive. Once she started showing, she wore a tight red latex dress with high heels.

Also, on her social media, she often talks about the things that people still don’t openly discuss. She’s talked about postpartum injuries and wearing disposable underwear.

“After all these years in fashion, I never could’ve guessed that disposable underwear would be my favorite piece of clothing, but here we are! No one talks about the recovery and healing (yes even the messy parts) that new moms go through. I wanted to show you guys that it’s not all rainbows and butterflies!”

She once posted a video where her stretch marks were visible. One user commented “I had twins but I did not get any stretch marks. I hope that does not affect your career.” The model replied, “Gosh — hope I still have a career with my stretch marks.”

By the way, Ashley’s husband fully supports her, “Justin says my stretch marks look like the tree of life.”

It looks like Graham doesn’t need to worry about work because her popularity around the world is growing. Found out how Ashley Graham embraced her motherhood journey.