Sports Illustrated Makes History With Its Body-Positive Swimsuit Covers

Along with Graham, model bombshell Hailey Clauson and mixed martial artists Ronda “Rowdy” Rousey with her mix of beauty, brains and brawn, represent a vast array of body types.

This isn’t the first time SI has made a body-positive move. While the magazine has been known to select seemingly flawless women with ‘perfect’ bodies for their covers, Graham appeared in an advertisement for ‘Swimsuits For All,’ in 2015, and the stunning Robyn Lawley was the first plus-sized model to grace the editorial pages of SI.

"All three women are beautiful, sexy and strong," MJ Day, the Assistant Managing Editor, stated at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 Revealed event. "Beauty is not cookie cutter," he added. "Beauty is not 'one size fits all.' Beauty is all around us and that became especially obvious to me while shooting and editing this year's issue."

SI took another progressive step towards inclusion with this year's Swimsuits For All #SwimSexy ad campaign which features British-Ghanaian model Philomena Kwao and 56-year-old Nicola Griffin, the oldest model to ever be a part of the swimsuit edition. The images are beautiful, and we applaud SI’s refreshing diversity. It’s about time such inclusive steps were taken by big media publications and we hope others follow suit.