A couple of months ago I met a lady at a networking event. Antonia owns a swimwear business called Mermaid in England and is selling magical, colour changing bikinis. But the reason why we connected straight away, and knew that we had to work together was our shared passion.
We both feel very strongly about empowering women and changing the perception of what beautiful should look like. The media only shows thin, white and hairless girls – photoshopped into an unrealistic perfection of the ‘ideal’… So we decided to change that.
We started our project to be able to free all women (and girls) from the standard, by showing that there are many definitions of beautiful.
We need to change the messaging.
We need to change the way we perceive ourselves.
We must do this for all of our health and wellbeing.
These are the images of our first body positive, real women bikini photoshoot.
I can’t even express the pride and amazement and gratitude I feel, looking at these photographs. These 9 brilliant, gorgeous women decided to conquer their own body image issues and insecurities, and volunteered to be our ‘models’ for the day. (And aren’t they breathtakingly beautiful?!)
This is what they said about the experience:
“It was an amazing experience and one I will remember for a very long time. I did feel nervous, it did challenge me but you know what they say- it’s good to get out of your comfort zone!! The camaraderie between us all was fabulous and it was really good fun!! We laughed a lot too, and it was very special and supportive.”
“What an amazing experience yesterday was!!The anxiety hit the night before and I really struggled with it to start with but the camaraderie of the other women there really eased my mind and by the end of the group shots I felt so much more relaxed.I am so proud to be part of this.Thank you all for helping to take me out if my head.Thank you Viktoria for taking such awesome pictures and putting us all at ease.”
“Just back from the #realwomen swimwear shoot & what a fantastic experience it was! Got to bare a load of flesh, laughter & lots of love with some gorgeous ladies. I’m now very excited (& also petrified) to see the real (unedited) images from the day. Thank you Antonia, Viktoria & the crew! You made us all feel safe, welcome & rather lovely looking too #weareallbeautifullyus”
“You just radiate compassion when you are shooting, did you know that?! “
It’s a small step of course, but we are really hoping to inspire other women to accept and own their bodies and maybe even to love themselves a little bit more…
If you feel we did inspire you and would like to be part of future photoshoots – please get in touch!
