Ashley Graham Fronts August 2016 Cosmopolitan Magazine
Model, Desįgner and Body Activist Ashley Graham is cover star of the August 2016 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.
The Lane Bryant ambassador sizzles in a blue velvet Ashley Stewart bodysuit, flaunting her curves. In an inside photo from the editorial she rocks a matching rose print lingerie set. Ashley posted a photo of the cover on Instagram with the caption ‘Be proud of the skin you’re in.’
In her interview with the glossy, Graham opened up about why she chooses to refrain from calling herself a plus-size model, despite industry norms. ‘Just because I’m not calling myself plus-size doesn’t mean I’m not representing a woman who is…I’m giving curvy women a seat at a table that we’ve never been invited to before a table with high end fashion people who have never considered us beautiful.’
Further excerpts from her interview…
On Amy Schumer taking Glamour to task for implying she is plus-size: ‘I can see both sides, but Amy talks about being a big girl in the industry. You thrive on being a big girl, but when you’re grouped in with us, you’re not happy about it? That, to me, felt like a double standard.’
On the trolls who remark on her interracial relationship with husband Justin Ervin: ‘One comment on Instagram was ‘I knew a girl her size could only be with a black guy.’ I think that’s so ugly. But we talk about the fact that I’m white and he’s black all the time. I’ve seen how racist America is. It’s opened my eyes to how ignorant I have been, how white privilege has taken over a lot of my thoughts and actions because it’s just something that I take for granted.’
On a previous relationship with an alcoholic: ‘He was abusive in more than one way … He threw a couch on me. He came home drunk. I was sitting on it, and he flipped it upside down. I remember my elbow being jammed but thinking, He didn’t hit me; he was just really angry, you know? You hear stories of women who say the exact same thing – I wasn’t showing up with bruises, he wasn’t beating me every day. Looking back, I should’ve left, but I was an insecure woman in a terrible relationship who did not know herself.’
More recently, Ashley penned a powerful open letter titled, ‘Shamed If I Do, Shamed If I Don’t’ in Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter in which her strong final words were ‘My body is MY body. I’ll call the shots.’
What do you think of Ashley’s Cosmo cover ? Sound off on twitter @fmd1_com using the hashtag #lovefmd.
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