131consumer and the brand,” she says. “I think that there need to be
initiatives within the design schools, that there need to be man-
datory classes that designers take, because there are none. The
education is not there.”
Graham’s ultimate goal: “I want a talk show,” she says. It’s a
career move that she has been gradually building toward. Besides
her podcast, she has a series on Ellentube, an online portal for The
Ellen DeGeneres Show, called Fearless with Ashley Graham in which
she helps normal people who struggle with confidence, showing
she’s just as good at bonding with single dads and teenagers as
celebrities. “If she wants a talk show, she will get one. To have a suc-
cessful talk show, you need likability and relatability,” says Gayle
King, a co-host of CBS This Morning. “[She’s] always unapologeti-
cally and uniquely herself.”
When Pretty Big Deal launched, Graham reached out to King,
whom she had met at an event a few years ago, to discuss what makes
a good interview. “It’s not like she needs advice,” King says. “She’s
supremely confident, and that’s a good thing.”
Graham won’t reveal any further details about whether or not
her dream talk show will become a reality, nor will she say what is
in her five-year plan. But as a woman who says that her last three
vision boards (including covers of magazines she wanted to appear
on, ads for brands she wanted to work with and an image of a TED
Talk) have 85 percent come true, she knows what she wants and has
a clear idea of what she can deliver. Years ago, when a mentor, the life
coach Marshawn Evans Daniels, asked what people most often want
to know about her, Graham replied: “How do you gain confidence?”
Evans Daniels said, “Great, that’s your business.”G
RAHAM HAS MADE a business by being herself.
On the day of the photo shoot for this story, she
posted a behind-the-scenes look with coiffed
hair and a hands-free-pumping bra to her nearly
12 million Instagram followers with the caption: “17
packs of hair on my head (yes it was as heavy as you
could imagine!) and two 20 min pump session[s]—Multitasking at
its finest.”
She hasn’t returned to her pre-maternity size and isn’t worried
about it. “I am a full-fledged 16. I haven’t been a full-fledged 16 since
I got married,” says Graham, who has been doing workouts remotely
with personal trainer Kira Stokes and keeps up her yoga practice. “I
have like 25 pounds on me that I still have from before I was preg-
nant.” She also has a workout series on social media called Thank
Bod that gets to her approach—move your body for your own sake,
not some smaller size on the horizon. “I don’t know one person that
actually lost weight in quarantine,” Graham says. “So then to go and
try to lose baby weight in quarantine is an epic fail.”
She stands up and rolls down her maternity underwear to show
that her stomach is now a little round. Graham’s mother brings Isaac
into the office to nurse. Graham pulls down her bra and starts breast-
feeding without hesitation.
“I hate that I constantly have to discuss my body, because I don’t
know any man that has to do that. But what motivates me to continue
to talk about my body is that I didn’t have someone talking about
their body when I was young,” she says. “This is why I don’t post
like the ‘perfect’ Instagram photos. I keep it real and raw constantly
because I want [people] to know that there are women with cellulite,
with back fat, with stretch marks.... There are a lot of curvy women,
plus-size women, fat women, whatever you want to call them.”
So what would she like to be called? Graham answers, without a
pause: “A woman.” •past, helping embrace that.... I’m talking in third person,” she says,
with a laugh.
Thinking deeply about her own identity extends to her son, who
will grow up in an interracial family (her husband is Black). “It’s
been a very big conversation in our family, and, having a biracial
son, it has to continue,” she says. Patrisse Cullors, one of the found-
ers of Black Lives Matter, has been a guest on Pretty Big Deal with
Ashley Graham, the podcast she launched in 2018. “It took women
to start a movement like this, a worldwide movement,” Graham
says. “Something that Patrisse told me that I thought was really
great was that a lot of people’s concept of Black Lives Matter is that
it’s...only speaking about Black death. But in reality, it’s truly about
Black life and how to continue to save Black life.... For anybody
who’s not educated in this, it’s time to get educated. You have no
other choice.”
The fashion industry’s relationship to racial diversity, like size
inclusivity, has been marked by a token few who are accepted and
successful. No one is more aware of this gatekeeper mentality
than Graham. And even though she has benefited from being one
of the best-known models of her generation, she wants her suc-
cess to help usher in more diversity. “This has to be the moment
where fashion changes—where TV, film, everything changes,” she
says. “If you’re not talking about something that you’re passion-
ate about, then what are you using your platform for? How are you
creating change?”
What Graham really wants is a larger platform. “Pretty Big Deal
has been a really big focal point for me right now, especially dur-
ing the pandemic,” she says. “It’s a master class of everyone that
I’m incredibly inspired by that I feel like everyone else should be
inspired by, too,” she says. Kim Kardashian West, Chelsea Handler,
Jada Pinkett Smith and Gayle King have been on the podcast.
Dream guests include Jane Fonda, Adele, Colin Kaepernick and
Ava DuVernay.
“She’s exactly what you think she is—she’s super sweet, funny,
grounded, down to earth, chill. And no, that is not always the case,”
says Demi Lovato, a friend and former guest on the podcast who
was introduced to Graham at the 2017Time 100 Gala. “When I met
her I was still struggling with an eating disorder to some degree,
[and there was] this woman with full confidence in her appearance,
confidence within herself as a woman,” Lovato says. “Imagine she’s
this giant waterproof jacket and someone pours [negativity], and it
just rolls off of her.”
Last September Graham walked the Fendi runway show wear-
ing a transparent organza dress with a muted floral print. Silvia
Venturini Fendi, one of the brand’s artistic directors, is a designer
who has championed Graham: “She is an advocate to embrace and
support models of all sizes and backgrounds. The casting for the
show in September reflected the idea of a family. I wanted to have
the sense of sisters, mothers, fathers and sons, including different
ages, different body shapes, like in real life,” says Venturini Fendi.
“It’s liberating for me to see clothes portrayed in a different way, on
different sizes.”
Graham is mulling projects about the challenges of navigating
work and motherhood. (She’s planning to wean Isaac sometime
soon: “I’m just like, I am not your pacifier, I am a boss, I am a busi-
nesswoman. I have shit to do,” she says.) She has partnerships with
the St. Tropez self-tanning line and Flamingo body care products
coming up this year. Or she might start her own clothing label.
“Sixty-eight percent of American women are size 14 and above.
The problem is that most brands, they’re not producing a sizing
that’s reflective of who we are. It’s actually hurting everyone—theROLE MODEL
“It’s a master class
of everyone that I’m in-
credibly inspired by
that I feel like everyone
else should be inspired
by, too,” she says
of her Pretty Big Deal
with Ashley Graham
podcast. Saint Laurent
by Anthony Vaccarello
jacket, shirt (worn
backwards), pants and
jacket (worn as a skirt),
Ben-Amun by Isaac
Manevitz necklace,
Roger Vivier earrings,
Giuseppe Zanotti
heels and hairstylist’s
own ribbon.