She can’t quite say she’s a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model, but Ashley Graham has a page among them in this year’s SI Swimsuit Issue. The 27-year-old model, who wears a size 14, is featured wearing a bikini in an ad for the company swimsuitsforall, which specializes in designs for women who wear size 8 and above. In other words, most women.
swimsuitsforall is launching a #curvesinbikinis campaign with Graham as its centerpiece. Graham is spot-on as spokesmodel, since Graham’s size, 14, is actually the size most women wear. swimsuitsforall doesn’t use the “plus-size” designation because, frankly, it doesn’t make too much sense. Why call something “plus” when it’s actually “normal-size”? (Unless you’re Starbucks.) Yet article after article covering the story calls Ashley Graham “plus-size.” Time magazine even published an article about another “plus-size” model who is part of the official Sports Illustrated spread–not just, like Graham, an ad crashing the exclusively skinny party. Time‘s “plus-size” model is size-12 Robin Lawley. Size 12, being smaller than the average, is “minus-size” really.
