Bikini season can be intimidating for even the most body-confident woman. (Yes, even these stars.) And Swimsuits for All (a mega swimwear shopping site) is trying to change that with its latest campaign. Plus size models Jada Sezer, Shareefa J, Robyn Lawley join blogger Gabi Gregg in a calendar for the website to encourage women to embrace their curves. And if the cover feels familiar to you, well, there’s a reason for that.
Courtesy Swimsuits for All
To support their message about feeling great in swimwear at every size, the models, bloggers and body-image activists staged their own version of 2014′s three-model Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover (see the photos below), posing topless in brightly-colored bottoms at the shoot, which took place in Turks and Caicos.
And far from just being pretty faces, the girls in the shoot also made sure to explain the mission behind the calendar. “I think it’s sad that the representatives of woman in mainstream culture are usually so small, because we have such a diversity of sizes in the real world,” Gregg explains in a video promoting the calendar. “What happens is I think so many women see those girls and think they have to look like them. And I know that plus-size models and bloggers like myself are helping change that.”
Australian model Robyn Lawley shares that she always had a difficult time dressing for her shape at the beach. “I really struggled to find a swimsuit in my own size,” she says. “I was wearing underwear at the beach — bras and knickers that looked like swimsuits. So I thought, this had to change and I had to change it. Now, I feel sexy in a swimsuit when it’s fitting me correctly and it’s beautiful to look at. It has nice colors and it’s fashion forward.”
Click here for more images from the stars’ curvy swimsuit calendar. What do you think of the new campaign?
–Brittany Talarico
