Carmen Carrera Quotes

My visibility may have gotten Hollywood to redefine what's attractive.

One cabbie chastened me by saying that the fashion industry was doing harm to young people, who are trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal. It prompted me to make body image and diversity key issues on 'The Business of Fashion.'

I never saw anyone my size in magazines when I was younger.

I've been trying to be the model that I wanted to see when I was a teenager, looking through magazines and not seeing myself, looking at pictures that were so edited.

Part of the reason I wanted to model was to push the boundaries and challenge the perceptions of what a beautiful body is supposed to look like. Why should I feel any differently about looking good than anyone else?

Every woman is not a runway model, nor should she be.

I did a little modeling in Minnesota, but because I was a heavier 'model,' I didn't pursue it much when I lived there.

I'm 5'3'', and not often you get to see that in a magazine. I think that what is so cool about 'Sports Illustrated' is it's all different body shapes, all difference sizes. You have actresses, sports figures, musicians, so it's all about skin deep beauty sort of radiating to the outside, and that's what's so special.

I know when I was a kid I saw only one color of beauty, I saw only one kind in all the billboards and all magazines and the video clips. One kind and it was so frustrating.

It has to be something people prioritize - it should be the number-one priority: representing all types of beauty, all types of shapes and sizes.

I am not my skin. I am a model with a skin condition.

My hair was curly, and everyone else's was straight or in micro braids. I didn't have a lot of money, so I shopped at thrift stores. And I'm petite - I never looked shapely. I remember thinking, 'Will I ever have that stereotypical round, full butt that people think most black women have? I had to find another way to feel good about myself.

I think that people put a lot of worth into looks. Unfortunately, there's a standard that so many people look up to that is unrealistic for everyone's body type.

Some people say there's a reason that Victoria's Secret wouldn't put me or any woman who doesn't fit within a certain spectrum on the runway.

I never grew up seeing women that looked like me in magazines or on TV and didn't feel like I had a place in the world of fashion. I am honoured to be part of that change.

Don't focus on your body. Love it, but know it'll never be up to society's standards because it's all Photoshop and exclusivity. And that's okay!

Girls see enough of this body that we can't imitate, that we'll never be able to obtain, these unrealistic expectations...it's better to look strong and healthy...

The majority of women in America look like me.

I have a 6-year-old niece who doesn't look like the majority of girls on the covers of magazines. I hope that by the time she's 16, the world will have changed.

I've never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines. I represent the majority of women and I'm very proud of that.

I don't think I'm curvaceous. It's simply that most other actresses are really, stupidly tiny.

I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.

Beauty magazines make my girlfriend feel ugly.

Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you; they make you perfect. It's not real life.

I am an unconventional beauty. I grew up in a high school where if you didn't have a nose job and money and if you weren't thin, you weren't cool, popular, beautiful. I was always told that I wasn't pretty enough to be on television.