One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashley Graham has learned a thing or two about working from home in style.
Following the birth of her baby boy in January 2020, the 33-year-old supermodel told Oprah Daily, she adopted a laid-back look for her Zoom meetings that consisted of a button-down shirt from R13 and, well, not much else.
“What the people on the other end of my Zooms couldn’t see is that I was almost always not wearing anything on the bottom,” Graham said.
“You’d be lucky if I put a bra on; I got used to not wearing one, especially knowing I’d be popping a boob out at any given moment to feed Isaac.”
The famously candid catwalker went pantsless for photoshoots, too.
“Even for a cover story for WSJ. Magazine, I wore a chunky, gorgeous sweater from Khaite ($1,540) over a bra ($520), with nothing on the bottom. I felt very stylish,” she recalled. “But would I have worn that look for a photoshoot before the pandemic? Probably not.”
But while Graham’s still got her heels and bras stashed away (“I think we all now feel more comfortable with being … comfortable,” she noted), she’s since “started to have a little fun with clothing again,” opting for colorful Frankie Shop sweats, statement jewelry, sneakers and makeup to step things up.
She’s even wearing jeans again, specifically Commonry’s slim-fit styles (about $76).
“Of course, I still have baby weight — let’s be real!” Graham said. “But it got to a point where I told myself, ‘Okay girl, you cannot wear sweatpants all the time. It has to only be sometimes.'”
Added the model, “I know my husband [filmmaker Justin Ervin] doesn’t care at all about what I wear, but it was truly about not wanting to constantly see myself in saggy bottoms anymore. I needed that for me to feel better about me.”
Oprah Daily launched on Thursday with interviews with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and inaugural poet Amanda Gorman in addition to Graham. The titular media mogul also wrote about her experience getting the COVID-19 vaccine, and spotlighted stars of color including Tiffany Haddish, Patti LaBelle and Misty Copeland.