Padma Lakshmi Wanted Her Stretch Marks and Scar in Campaign

(Image credit: Courtesy of Bare Necessities)

published 31 May 2024

Padma Lakshmi stars in a new photo campaign for Bare Necessities, promoting her own line of lingerie, loungewear, and swimwear.

In the stunning pictures, Lakshmi's stretch marks and the scar on her arm are clearly visible, something she explains was extremely important to her.

"At a very young age, I learned how arbitrary beauty standards are," she explained to People in a new interview surrounding the brand campaign.

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"I told them, 'Don't take out my scar, and don't take out my inoculation mark, and do not take out the stretch marks on my thigh and bottom,' because I have them," she continued.

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Lakshmi revealed that she took steps to look and feel her best for the campaign, including prioritizing a balanced diet and exercizing, plus getting lymphatic drainage massages, ahead of the shoot. However, she didn't want the marks on her body to be edited, so as to set an example for body acceptance.

"I try to tell my daughter that pretty is skin-deep," she explained. "If you can bring something to the table that has nothing to do with what you look like, or hopefully build on it something meaningful for others, then you're ahead of the game."

The TV personality shares daughter Krishna, 14, with ex Adam Dell.

Lakshmi collaborated with Bare Necessities to create a collection that she hoped would inspire confidence in women of all ages and with diverse body types.

"I designed a collection that I feel works on everybody, but I wanted to give special attention to women with a larger bust size," she said in a press release.

"I hope the collection encourages women of all ages and sizes to feel sexy and feminine. Lingerie isn’t just the purview of 20-somethings with perfect bodies. I feel more confident in my body today than I ever did when I was that age modeling lingerie. I’m hoping that women will treasure these styles, and use them in a variety of ways—in and out of the bedroom."

The collection will be available to shop at Bare Necessities from June 6.

Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.