In a few years, the American model has been able to impose her style and her voluptuous curves in an industry where zero-size is required. Portrait of an uninhibited woman.
« Nobody wants to see curvy women », fashion is a matter of « dreams and illusions », Karl Lagerfeld said. Well, Ashley Graham proves easily the opposite. When all models retouch, use and abuse Photoshop, the 30-year-old top stands out. She shows up without a bra or panties, loose hairstyle, her eyes enhanced by the eye-liner, a real pin-up. A beauty from another galaxy. A universe where women have breasts, hips, buttocks.
Still, it has not always been easy to love this size 48 and the cellulite delivered with it. Little girl, her father « was the king of hurtful insults », she recalls. In high school, she is dumped by her boyfriend who said that one day, she will become as obese as her mother.
She didn’t become this icon with a snap. Spotted at 12 in a mall, Ashley was 17 when she moved alone to New-York. « I was immediately asked to lose weight. It had the opposite effect: I took 10 kilos ». Size plus model, the brunette does not let go. She knows that the average size of American women is 48. She grits her teeth when the other girls asked if, she will also be paid for the shooting, because of her weight. It will encourage her to be a real body-activist. That’s how, she created Alda, in 2014, with four others models, an association that promotes diversity and all forms of beauty.
Ashley gladly admits that sometimes it can still be hard but she doesn’t want to comply with the standards of beauty enacted by the fashion industry. She continues to cover prestigious magazines and parade for major brands and she definitely convinced all the industry that beauty does not have just one definition.
