Sports Illustrated, swimsuits, and stretch marks

Err’body know it a’int trickin’ if you got it

There’s no shame in her game. And, better believe, she’s got game. Plus-size model, Denise Bidot sizzled in Sports Illustrated’s recent Swimsuit Edition with a nautical blue, white-striped, sailing anchor print two-piece that showed off more than skin – belly stretch marks from pregnancy.

Dubbed “body positive,” in an DesignTAXI article, it is a rising retaliation to the body shaming you hear so much about where women, and men, really, are made to feel bad for physical imperfections.

The beginning of change

Lane Bryant, a major clothing chain known for plus-size clothes for women, was among the firsts to chart unmarked territory in 2016 when they ran an ad with Bidot without all of the brushing, cropping, and adjusting of photo editing. That would have been marketing suicide just a few years ago.

But just the opposite happened as nearly 20,000 supported the model on her Instagram post about the daring photo.

And it’s more than just a breakthrough for the fashion industry.

Business world: take note. If nothing else, the ads just go to show that honesty really is the best policy.

Let’s face it. There’s really not much that get past consumers, thanks to Google. It’s the Information Age and industry secrets aren’t secrets anymore. Like Liam Neeson, consumers will find you – the real you.

No more sheeple

Readers have long figured out that a degree of Photoshop-ing goes into those magazine models.The same goes for most any other industry.

Perfection isn’t the reality and consumers want companies to stop putting up the front.

Get real and you have instantly made a connection. In a time when everything is on a little glowing screen, it would be a breath of fresh air to see something that they see the exact same way off-screen. It’s just practical. It makes consumers think that they can actually use whatever it is that you’re selling.

It is possible to be honest about shortcomings while still being attractive – in the business sense and the fashion sense, apparently. The key is just balancing the two and playing up the seemingly negative as a positive.

Hop on the culture shift bandwagon

Keeping the stretch marks in gave Sports Illustrated and moms out there major props. For so long, moms have felt societal pressures to be it all and have it all, which includes a hot bod. Stretch marks are now celebrated and called badges of honor and signs of strength by many mom groups on social media.

This is want you want.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Be a brand that makes your customers put a fist in the air in support.” quote=”You want the kind of response that makes your customers put a fist in the air in support. You want to be relatable, in real life.”]

Show your scars, or your stretch marks, and just see all the support you get. You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be honest.

#PowerOfPlus