Boost Your Confidence by Following Achieng Agutu’s Advice

The 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie has grown her community to 1.5 million followers through her empowering content.

Achieng Agutu was photographed by Yu Tsai in Mexico.Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

New York City-based influencer Achieng Agutu describes herself as the “tantalizing confidence queen” on Instagram. The 2023 Swim Search co-winner, who took a leap of faith and applied to the open casting call last year, makes her debut as a rookie in this May’s 60th anniversary SI Swimsuit Issue. She was photographed by Yu Tsai in Mexico for the magazine, and the results of their collaboration are truly fabulous.

The content creator has made it her mission to encourage women of all shapes and sizes, especially women of color, to embrace and love their bodies. Born and raised in Kenya, Agutu moved to the U.S. in 2013, when she was just 15. She’s always had a strong sense of self, but it wasn’t until she traveled across the world that she really began to nail her own personal voice and create community.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Swimfluence Network (@theswimfluencenetwork)

Her best advice on being confident

Today, the 27-year-old boasts a following of 1.5 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. She has built a fan base through her empowering self-love messages, along with modeling, Fashion Week and runway clips, and general sassy content about being a woman in her 20s. 

She regularly shares uplifting content and talks about her own body with love, admiration and respect, encouraging other women to do the same.

“Don’t let your body stop you from living your best life,” Agutu says. “If you’ve got that stomach, embrace it. If you’ve got those stretch marks, embrace it. Live your best life, honey.”

Be your own best friend

Agutu admits that she occasionally has bad days, too. Like everyone else, she hears critical voices in her own head, but she’s constantly working on reminding herself that her opinion is the only one that matters. Her best tip is to only talk to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend—with kind, caring, uplifting and loving words and mantras—because “you’re your Day One, literally from the womb.”

Agutu is proud of herself for becoming the representation she lacked seeing on the internet as a teenager. She’s a fan of fellow SI Swimsuit model Megan Thee Stallion, and the rapper’s signature motto: “Bad b------ have bad days, too.”

Read more about Achieng Agutu’s 2024 SI Swimsuit photo shoot here.