This plus-size model revealed why she got naked in Glossier’s new ad campaign

Representation is everything, which is why we’re nerding out over Glossier’s new “Body Hero” naked ad campaign. The ads depict models of all shapes, sizes, and skin colors in the nude, which even in the body-positive cultural zeitgeist is still really uncommon. So these ads are definitely effective.

Recently, Paloma Elsesser, a plus-size model in the Glossier campaign, opened up on Instagram about her nude, life-size ad, and explained why she felt it was something she had to do.

Elesser captioned an image of her ad on Instagram with a long message about why she chose to do the ad — because no matter how much you love your bod, posing nude in a national ad campaign is a pretty big deal.

She added that it was also really important to her that the campaign wasn’t just a digital campaign or in a print magazine — it’s out there, in your face, in the real world. Elsesser wrote that she did it to show “that young girl looking on Instagram, or walking down Spring St. [in SoHo, New York City], that she is f*cking perfect despite the precarious and irresponsible versions of beauty we are urged to digest.”

And even though she’s super proud of the ad campaign and is not interested in being called “brave” because she’s curvy and posed nude, it still wasn’t easy to love herself before she got in front of the camera. Loving yourself is hard!

Elsesser wrote that she cried three times and felt scared, “paralyzed by insecurity,” and “exhausted by an unfettered vulnerability” that she was going to present to the world.

The thing that got her through? Remembering it wasn’t *about* her.

It was about sending a message to everyone who walked by it and had to “deal” with it.

Here are some of the images from the campaign.

Check Paloma out.

The campaign is awesome. Let’s hope more beauty brands — or all brands — take the hint.