Ashley Graham: ‘Sports Illustrated’s First-Ever Plus Size Model In New Ad

How exciting! For the first time ever, ‘Sports Illustrated’ has included a plus-size model in their annual swimsuit issue — and she’s gorgeous.

Ashley Graham, 27, is making waves after being featured inside Sports Illustrated‘s 2015 swimsuit issue. Not only is she the first plus size model to ever be included, but she did so in the tiniest black string bikini looking hotter than ever. Awesome!

Ashley Graham: ‘Sports Illustrated’s First Plus Size Model

Talk about making a statement!

Sports Illustrated did just that by making the brave and, more importantly, bold decision to put an ad featuring a gorgeous plus size model in their swimsuit spread for the very first time

the model featured is Ashley Graham, born in 1987, who wears a dress size 16 according to WikiPedia.

Ashley flaunts her curvy, sexy body in a tiny black bikini as she passes by a group of hot guys lounging by the pool for the ad, which is meant to empower women with the help of a hashtag #CurvesInBikinis.

This is an incredible step forward for women everywhere, plus size or not, so Ashley is definitely an icon!

Ashely Believes You Can Be Healthy At Any Size

In Jan. 2015, Ashley penned an essay about being plus size and how it’s not always a negative thing no matter how it is portrayed in most aspects of pop culture.

“I think that you can be healthy at any size and my goal is to help and educate women on that,” she wrote for Net-A-Porter’s The Edit.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a size 2 or 22 as long as you’re taking care of your body, working out, and telling yourself, ‘I love you’ instead of taking in the negativity of beauty standards.”

What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers — Are you impressed with Ashley’s ad in Sports Illustrated? Do you agree that you can be healthy at any size? Comment below with your thoughts!