Josephine Skriver Says That Beauty Is All About Radiating Happiness

The three-time SI Swimsuit model shares her philosophy on the matter during a sit-down interview.

Josephine Skriver was photographed by Kate Powers in the Dominican Republic. / Kate Powers/Sports Illustrated

Over the years, we here at SI Swimsuit have taken every opportunity to speak to our talent in order to learn their opinions on beauty. Each and every model who graces of the pages of the annual issue has proven to be both talented in front of the lens and a force for good in the world, too. In other words, each and every one of them has proven themselves to be beautiful both inside and out.

Josephine Skriver is just one such individual. The Danish model posed for the the SI Swimsuit Issue for three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022, cementing her place in brand history with incredibly beautiful features from Sacramento to Montenegro.

But she didn’t just pose expertly for the camera. She also took the opportunity to share insights from her many years in the modeling industry. As a successful model, she understands the constraints of beauty norms and expectations. Beauty has become synonymous with the physical—from your natural features to your glam and your clothes.

But if you ask Skriver, really beauty—achieving your “most stunning” self—is about so much more than that. According to the 31-year-old, real beauty “means confidence,” of course, but it also comes down to kindness. Physical traits are nothing compared to the way that you treat people, she notes.

She finds others most beautiful when they have a smile on their face. Or when “you can just see they’re glowing—that is when people are the most stunning to me,” she says in a sit-down interview with SI Swimsuit. A smile trumps typical notions of physical beauty every time.

And it’s about more than the act of smiling, too. It’s about how that smile translates into happiness and how that happiness radiates to others. “When you see people shine to the point that it radiates and you feed off of it”—when you feel a desire to be around someone on account of their joy—that, according to the model, “is when I think people are the most stunning.”

So, really, if you ask Skriver, true beauty it isn’t about physical attributes at all—with the exception of a radiant smile. And it’s that notion we believe is more than worth sharing ahead of National Inner Beauty Day, which takes place on Monday, Oct. 7.

Over the years, the model has brought that very energy to the set of her SI Swimsuit photo shoots, radiating happiness in a way that we find absolutely stunning—both inside and out.