I’ve been doing a little bathing suit shopping lately. Instead of trekking to the store, to stand in front of the dreaded three-way-mirrors and florescent lighting, I took to shopping online for my beach wear. I started with one of my all time favorites, Aerie. Since, I was missing out on the ability to see what the suits would look like on me, I wanted to see suits on girls that somewhat resembled my body type. I love Victoria’s Secret swim line as much as the next girl, but the chance of me looking anything like the 5’11” model in those swimsuits is slim to none. Aerie embraces every girl’s beauty with their #AerieReal campaign and represents their suits (and all of their products) on women of all shapes and sizes and they don’t photoshop a single one of them. Seriously, the marketing department of Aerie, deserves a big ol’ high five. Real is beautiful, thank goodness society is catching on. Which is why I decided to write a very unsponsored post sending Aerie my seal of approval and a virtual high five.
I have been a long time Aerie fan. I love their undies, bras and almost every year, I order at least one bathing suit from them. I can’t tell you exactly when they launched their #AerieReal campaign, but every time I hop on their site and am reminded of it, I get just as excited. I’ve seriously been meaning to write a post about it for a while now. When I was shopping the bathing suits (which are a really awesome price too), it was refreshing to see girls of all shapes and sizes, in their natural beauty. So, when I slip on the suit and a little bit of back bulge squishes out or my booty doesn’t look as smooth as I want it to, I know that it is totally normal. What isn’t normal is the plastic perfection we are used to seeing. We all have a little squish here or there, there is no such thing as perfection.
I’ve ordered this suit and this suit to try and all of my favorites are linked below.
In a world full of social media perfection and comparison, I think it’s more and more important to expand what we see as beautiful. Aerie isn’t the only brand to start representing other body types. I’ve seen Target ads that also had me sending virtual high fives. Short girls in an ad, woohoo!
Do you love the #aerieReal campaign as much as I do?
– Brooke
