Beauty comes in many different shapes and sizes, but sometimes the pressure to look a certain way can make us doubt that.
And don’t these gorgeous women know it. Which is why they gamely posed for the camera in one of the scariest pieces of clothing ever — the bathing suit.
These Buzzfeed writers decided to re-create a Victoria’s Secret photo shoot on a beautiful beach in Malibu. They each chose a model and attempted to replicate her pose — with interesting results.
Sheridan: “You don’t have to look like Behati to wear a swimsuit. Do what makes you happy and you’ll be OK in the end.”
“I wish I could say I was a very confident 13-year-old who didn’t care for Victoria’s Secret Angels, but I’d be lying to myself. I used to see photos of these girls and hope that one day I could look like that.”
Lara: “We may not all be models, but the world is a runway for ALL of us.”
“I want a magazine that I can pick up and look at the women and say, ‘Oh my god, that’s so me,’ not ‘Oh my god, I wish that was me.’ For the longest time I thought that if I tried hard enough I could someday look like them. Just one more hike or 30 more minutes on the treadmill and I would get there. But I never did.”
Allison: “I think everyone should get photographed on the beach in a bathing suit at some point in their life… it is a really fun experience that kind of helps you to get over any insecurities.”
“Everyone has cellulite, stretch marks, and pudge. Only you are focusing on your ‘problem areas’ — nobody else cares. Everything is flexed or tucked (or photoshopped), so it’s not real. A photograph is so misleading because it’s just capturing a millisecond.”
Kirsten: “Having airbrushed skin and zero fat doesn’t make you beautiful, having confidence and radiating that confidence makes you beautiful — flaws and all.”
“The thing that sucks about these magazines is they just make you feel like crap. They’re beautiful women, no doubt. But they don’t depict what real women really look like. I think it’s unhealthy for girls to only have one image of what a ‘bikini body’ is. Because a bikini body isn’t a model’s body, it’s YOUR body in a bikini.”
Nina: “Don’t compare yourself to the model. Very few of us are the model.”
“Looking at these models was just a constant reminder that never in my adult life have I been that skinny or white. I wish I could see someone like me in a magazine, but I’m still waiting.”
Kristin: “It’s really hard to be objective about your own body — so when someone says something nice about you, you should believe them.”
“For me, posing in a way that was almost intentionally unflattering felt like I was sabotaging myself.”
Go ahead, wear that bikini. You will look gorgeous… and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
