Ashley Graham Quotes

I just want to continue to break barriers and to show the industry and the world that beauty is diverse, and you don't have to be a certain stereotype to be beautiful.

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

What I think is exciting is that, to a certain extent, there is a revolution happening where black women are owning their own beauty, despite the standard of beauty that in the past has not had space for it.

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.

The idea that I get to kind of redefine what is beautiful and whose story deserves to be told and showcase that you know, big women have love lives and complex colorful lives like everybody else, that's really important to me.

It makes me very happy that people's perceptions of what's beautiful and attractive are gradually changing.

There are so many Muslim women that feel like they don't fit society's standard of beauty. I just wanted to tell them it's OK to be different; being different is beautiful, too.

It's always been a dream to be in a beauty campaign. Anything that can show girls they can look ethereal at any size.

It's incredible to see fashion starting to become more inclusive and diverse.

To see another fat girl on television, I think, is really powerful. I'm happy to open the doors for a younger generation of fat, black women to be visible, to be seen, to be heard.

So much of the mainstream media has taught us what beauty is, but everyone is beautiful.

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 know I'm representing a group - black, Latin, whatever you want to put me with - and I want to show that they are beautiful the way they are. I think that's really important for our youth to see.

My first shoot was on a rooftop in swimsuits with two plus-size models who were curvy and voluptuous and beautiful, and they taught me so much about being beautiful in any shape or size.

Just because we're a bit curvier doesn't mean we don't want to look great.

For so long, I have been an outsider because of my size. And I think that fashion has always, in some way, catered to celebrities or to a thinner idealistic model.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again because you can't say it enough: Your skin is beautiful - dark, light, in the middle, whatever. Brown is beautiful. Your hair is beautiful. If you wear a weave, it's beautiful. If you choose to be natural, that's beautiful. Also, you are enough.

Honestly, at the end of the day, what I want women to know is that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. And that it should not define who you are.

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 wanted to show girls it's not bad to be dark, that different is beautiful.

I'm thin and white and blond, but I'm not an airbrushed, perfect thing. I have stretch marks all over. I have cellulite; I have acne. To me, it feels like you can't really be what you can't see, and so if you don't see those things, then you don't feel like you're valid.

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.