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Culture > Entertainment

This Year’s ‘Sports Illustrated’ Swimsuit Cover is Not Retouched

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Allie Maniglia

Body positivity is in, and photoshopping is out for this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. 

Ashley Graham is making headlines for her unretouched cover of the famous Swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. The gorgeous size 16 model and body positivity activist is hoping that the natural beauty in her pictures will encourage a new crop of women to buy the magazine. Especially since, as People reports, her cover is “100 percent authentic.”

“I think what’s happening is more women who probably didn’t even think to pick up the issue are actually going to say, ‘Wow, I’m being represented here today. I’m going to take this, look through it and hopefully be empowered,’” Graham said. 


The magazine will feature three different body types on three different covers. Joining Graham on these covers are Ronda Rousey, showing us that strong is beautiful, and Hailey Clauson, proving that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being lean. 

Graham couldn’t help but be excited knowing that her cover will potentially help transform the way people look at not only the magazine, but body types. “What they are doing is they are setting the standard for what everybody else — magazines, designers, people in Hollywood, should be doing,” she said. 
 
By not allowing herself to be edited, Graham is proving that bodies empowered with confidence and self love are the most beautiful ones of all. 
 
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Allie Maniglia served as the Campus Correspondent for Her Campus at Penn State from 2017-2018. She majored in public relations with minors in international studies and communication arts and sciences. If she's not busy writing away, you can find her planning her next adventure (probably back to the U.K.), feeding an unhealthy addiction to HGTV or watching dog videos on YouTube.