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TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-05-27
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAgawjzimjc
you are bold you are brilliant and you are beautiful there is no other woman like you you are capable Arafat see you pop it over my bra today but that's alright I'm gonna choose to love you and think five you are just so sexy you can't stop rubbing each other that's alright I'm gonna keep you and so you lie I have not forgotten about you I'm
gonna choose to love you even though you want to take over my whole bottom half but you're part of me I love you it's true honestly I felt free once I realized I was never going to fit the narrow mold that society wanted me to sit in I was never going to be perfect enough for an industry that defines perfection from the outside in and that's
okay rolls curves cellulite all of it I love every part of me my name is Ashley Graham and I'm a model and body activists over the last fifteen years I've come to the conclusion that there is no one perfect body because I like you possess a wonderfully unique and diverse physique now the fashion industry may persist the label me as plus size but I like to
think of it is my size in fact did you know that the plus size fashion industry actually starts at a U. S. size eight and it goes into a U. S. size sixteen so basically what I'm saying is that the majority of this room right now is considered plus size how that make you feel be labeled I really feel like we need to start looking beyond
the plus size model paradigms to what it actually means to be a model in two thousand and fifteen my journey begins in Lincoln Nebraska I was twelve years old and scouted in a mall at thirteen I signed with the mob major modeling agency and was traveling the world's I was shooting big campaigns than before even %HESITATION graduated high school I had been to multiple different countries
at seventeen I graduated and moved to New York and while most kids are going through their self discovery staging college my self discovery stage was in the midst of catwalks catalogs and casting calls I was working as a full time plus size model back in Nebraska I was known as the fat model the girl who was pretty for a big girl I always dreaded hating I
hated answering my question what do you do for a living I would see that person's eyebrow raises I would reply I'm a model I have to quickly qualify with well I'm a plus size model in fact here's my very first editorial for YM magazine and you're reading it correctly cantaloupes large breasts I was hoping that women across America at the age of fifteen to rest their
big boobs but you know what the first thing that someone in middle school pointed out to me besides but the obvious with that fooled above my knee that fact fold above my knee as a young model my confidence was tugged satin pulled in all different directions I struggle to achieve true confidence I would go home and look in front of the mirror and only hate what
I saw and to fill the void on the inside I began the case all the vices being thrown my way between the parties the man the alcohol I was looking for self love for affirmation from somebody when in reality I didn't know who I was and I couldn't seem to get a handle on regulating my own weight I began to fox as I began to face
my insecurities had on and instead I was feeling my life with temporary fixes I like so many young women have struggled to love who I M. and the US global report I'm attitudes towards beauty actually did a survey two with thousands of women in ten different countries and you know what the most striking result was that only two percent of women find themselves beautiful took first
we need to work together to redefine the global vision of beauty and it starts with becoming your own role model as a curvy woman it was the assumption that I should look up to Marilyn Monroe or Jennifer Lopez mainly because they were two of the most notable curvy women in the public eye that were being praised for their curves but these were my role models in
reality the woman he looks up to the most was my mother she told me I was beautiful and she never devalued herself so why would I she told me and taught me that true beauty comes from within and that validation and self worth must also come from within in my lowest moments of insecurity this is when I realized that I had to re claim my body
and its image as my own plus size fashion is an eighteen billion dollar industry and now I am G. the world's number one modeling agency has sign me and other models that are not defined by their size my body like my confidence has been picked department if you waited and controlled by others who didn't necessarily understand it I had to learn to reclaim my body as
my own and in reclaiming my body as my own I understood as a woman that I have a greater purpose I had a greater purpose to redefine beauty the feminine beauty curvy models are becoming more and more vocal about the ice leading nature of the term plus size we are calling ourselves what we want to be called women with shapes that are our own I believe
beauty is beyond size with so much emphasis on the body and external it's no wonder that we all suffer so much internally but you know people in the fashion industry actually told me that I would never be in magazines let alone the covers of them well I guess the proven them wrong five cover is a little over a year and I was one of the very
first Kobe miles to be featured in Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition thank you never let anybody tell you that you can't I have achieved and I'm still achieving what was seemingly impossible my goal is to give a voice to young women to give a voice to young women who struggle to find someone they can look up to for girls who struggle to look inside the mirror and
say I love you for women who feel uncomfortable expressing their confidence they've locked away inside themselves for women who have relinquished their rights to someone else it is critical that both men and women create a body positive environment I list the important women in your lives create a safe space for them to express their body and their beauty for who they are not because of who
they're not be you be real be authentic be your favorite kind of woman don't let anybody else take that job and remember this is the generation of body diverse city the current is changing I now invite all of you sue Hass tags had XP V. fifteen with your own self affirming words there may not be a full length mirror in front of each of you today
