Marquita Pring Brought Good Vibes to Her SI Swimsuit Feature in Puerto Rico

Throughout her career, Marquita Pring has really come into her own. She spent much of her teenage years and her early modeling days feeling insecure about her stretch marks. Up until “a couple years ago,” Pring insisted that she was “never gonna go out on the red carpet with my stretch marks [showing].”

She felt like she had to hide them. In her early modeling days, she realized that the phenomenon wasn’t unique to her or a result of her size. She discovered that women of all shapes and sizes had them. “It has nothing to do with being big,” she explained to SI Swimsuit. “It's a human thing.” But yet “no one was talking about it.”

In the past couple years, she has learned to love her body and all that comes with it (stretch marks included). And now, Pring is trying to be that voice of honesty and encouragement that she didn’t have. “I couldn’t care less [about my stretch marks],” she said. “That’s me. It’s part of me. They’re on my knees, on my arms, they’re everywhere.”

It was that sort of self-confidence that really shined through in each of Pring’s four SI Swimsuit photo shoots. From her 2020 debut to her 2023 trip to Puerto Rico, the model was brimming with self-assurance, and the resulting photos are a testament to that.

Her most recent photo shoot in Puerto Rico, in particular, was one for the books. It was inspired by 1970s surf culture, and the resulting looks were appropriately groovy, to say the least.

Below are a few photos of the inspiring Pring from her fourth SI Swimsuit feature.

Marquita Pring was photographed by Ben Watts in Puerto Rico. Swimsuit by Seea. Earrings by Jennifer Meyer. Necklaces by ANNI LU and ByRoxStudio. Socks by Ben Watts. | Ben Watts/Sports Illustrated