Images: BUST magazine/Danielle St. Laurent
Here’s something we know for sure.
Regular exercise won’t necessarily give you a gap between your thighs or arms like Michelle Obama’s – it might for some – but sportswear editorial shoots usually suggest otherwise.
Which is why we love what BUST magazine has just done.
The latest edition of the US monthly has run a 10-page activewear spread featuring a team of models with a variety of body sizes and shapes.
The five women, all successful models in their own right, have founded a collaboration called ALDA which aims to promote size diversity in the fashion industry. The team includes some of the world's best-known plus-size models, like Ashley Graham.
How female body image has changed over the past 100 years.
In their BUST editorial, they all look fit, strong and vibrant - and it just so happens they don't fit the size 8-10 mould we're used to seeing in magazines. Even better - the sportswear they're modelling is actually really cool and stylish, which is quite a rarity when it comes to 'plus size' fashion.
"Every body is beautiful and every body is different. Some people are meant to be a size negative zero and some people are meant to be a size 16," model Danielle Redman says in the accompanying interview.
"Fashion dictates so many things in our lives, and little girls grow up thinking this is what beauty is," fellow ALDA co-founder Julie Henderson adds.
9 photos that shatter society’s stereotypes about what makes the “perfect” body.
"They see the magazines and they think 'OK, skinny, blonde,' whatever it is. And what ALDA does is say, 'Listen, every woman is beautiful'."
Hey, fashion world? We'd like to see more shoots like this, please. Because fitness comes in all shapes and sizes, just like bodies do.
You know what else we love? These real-talk #fitspo posters.
