Ashley Graham championed body diversity on the the runways at New York Fashion Week yesterday, as she led the charge in a show for lingerie label Addition Elle.
Ashley and a troop of models, of all shapes, showed off the collection she designed in collaboration with the Canadian store.
The 27-year-old has been an active figure in campaigning for more size diversity in the fashion industry since she was thrust into the limelight starring in a lingerie campaign for Lane Bryant in 2010. She also spoke out about her views on being deemed 'plus size' in a TedTalk, explaining how the term makes her feel marginalised by the industry.
You may also remember her as the model who Instagrammed her version of the 'Beach Body Ready' campaign as a backlash to the original, with the tagline 'curves in bikinis.'
NYFW was her next port of call to reform the way the fashion world views curvier models. The show was streamed live worldwide on Periscope and she encouraged the audience to tweet about it using the hashtag #IAmSizeSexy.
Ahead of the show, she told TIME “Every woman in the show has a completely different shape and we wanted to show diversity of shape and ethnicity and that’s what curvy women are."
Ashley hopes that the show is a step towards a more diverse representation of body shapes in the industry, as she thinks it's been slow progress so far. She told TIME: “If we have more people talking about what media has told us is bad, like cellulite and rolls, then more people are going to love the skin they’re in. Between ads like ‘this is the perfect body’ or you’re seeing the ‘skinny salad’ or jeans that tell you how to get the perfect butt, the media is still brainwashing.”
And Ashley hopes that by designing the underwear line herself and debuting it in a wider range of sizes, rather than rolling out a collection fitting just the smallest end of the size scale, she'll bring about change. She explained: “It was not inclusive for a girl like me,” she says. “I think now things are really changing.”