KOMI x GAFFER: Ashley Graham talks breaking fashion barriers and inspiring the next generation

Who’s your dream collaborator?

I've never worked with either of them, David LaChapelle or Steven Meisel. So, if you're watching this and just happen to be inspired by this, call me. 

Who’s your biggest inspiration in life? 

Okay, so my biggest inspiration in my life is my mom because she does everything with joy. She does everything confidently. And my biggest inspiration in business is definitely Kathy Ireland because she was a supermodel. She was just a regular model turned supermodel who started selling socks and now she's a mogul. That woman is killing it. And now I actually can call her a friend and I feel very grateful for that.

What’s the proudest moment of your career? 

There are so many little things that have added up over the years for me and like so many personal moments that have added up for me, whether it's emails or testimonies on the street about women who have completely found confidence within themselves and happy with who they are because I've told my story. But I have to say, doing my TED Talk called Plus Size, More Like My Size, that was a major pivotal moment for me in my career, one that I'll never be able to forget, that I'm super proud of, and we are approaching the 10-year anniversary of that. 

What was your favourite moment of 2023? 

When I launched my children's book called A Kid's Book About Beauty. And I just think it was such a great book for adults, for kids, and it should be in everybody's house. And you too can buy it. It's on the KOMI website. 

What’s your favorite TV show? 

Side Hustlers! Which you can also go and see on my KOMI profile. 

And what’s your favorite thing about being on Side Hustlers? 

My favorite thing about being on Side Hustlers is definitely being able to mentor all these different women who come on and are pouring their heart and soul out to you about this baby that they've been incubating for so long and that they know in their heart is their everything. So, it's fun to be able to really craft out a plan with them and see how it all kind of comes out and comes to fruition. 

What was something you learned from the show? 

The biggest lesson that I learned from Side Hustlers was that you can build and scale your business in so many different ways. When you talk to one person to another, you're going to get a different idea, you're going to get a different system, you're going to get different ways of actually putting it together. And it just goes to show that there's no one way to do anything, especially when it comes to building something that is your dream. 

What’s the most important thing about being a female founder? 

It's the fact that you are the founder. And whether you are the founder or whether you're on a board, just being there means that the business has a much higher percentage of sales succeeding because statistics show that when it's just an all-male board or founders, the business isn't going to scale and it's not going to take off as successfully as it would if there was even just one female on the board or as a co-founder. So congratulations on being a woman. 

As social media is a huge part of culture, how do you find the balance with it personally and professionally? 

Yeah, social media is such a hard one to figure out sometimes. And so when I have a hard time figuring out social media, I delete the apps. I'm not shutting down my page, I just delete the apps and it makes my life so much easier because I don't have to, like my thumb doesn't just go to the app and start scrolling.

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