SI Swimsuit Models Share How They’re Rewriting Beauty Standards

Ali Truwit, Rayna Vallandingham, Achieng Agutu and others share how they celebrate beauty.

SI Swimsuit stars, from athletes to creative directors to content creators, divulge how their definitions of beauty have changed over time. In this video presented by Radiesse, the women also share the importance of celebrating strength and being confident.

TRANSCRIPT

Ali Truwit: I love that I grew up in a swimsuit, and also, it’s really hard to grow up in a swimsuit.

Parris Goebel: In this world, it’s already so hard to be a woman and to celebrate yourself. We’re constantly being told how to act, how to dress, how to speak, how to walk. It’s challenging for us to just exist, honestly.

Anna Hall: Guys’ bodies, like when they go through puberty, are like working for them in sport, like it’s helping you get better. And for female athletes, it’s kind of the opposite. Like we’re kind of fighting our bodies in order to perform.

Rayna Vallandingham: I remember going into the dojo when I was like four years old and saying like, ‘I wanna be like Bruce Lee’ and everyone was like, ‘No, you can’t, you’re a woman.’

Cameron Brink: We don’t have as many role models. We just need to keep doing a good job of showing young girls what real athletic body types look like, or just real body types in general.

Achieng Agutu: All bodies need to be celebrated. All bodies are summer bodies. You deserve to love yourself and live in your body in whatever shape, size, color you come in.

Anna Hall: Looking and being as fit as I was like at the Olympics is not sustainable year-round. And we don’t live there. That’s like a really amazing feeling, to know that I’m giving my body what it needs and I feel like it gives me that back on the track.

Ali Truwit: Being around people who celebrate strength made me kind of focus on that side of things instead of worrying about what my body looked like in a swimsuit. It was wow, what can my body do in a swimsuit—or outside of it, for that matter.

Parris Goebel: The more I can love myself, lead by example and just genuinely celebrate myself and set the tone and let other women know that they’re beautiful as well.

Rayna Vallandingham: All the women in martial arts have proven everybody wrong. You know, this body has gotten me through so much and I love her for it, and I want everyone to feel that way.