Iskra has spoken to POPSUGAR in past interviews about the importance of unretouched photos. When she books a shoot, she'll request no retouching. To Women's Health, she recalled a shoot early in her career that really opened her eyes to just how far photo editing can go. Iskra barely recognized herself in those images: they gave her a thigh gap, smoothed her skin, even removed her moles.
"A team of people decided these things made me more beautiful. But these were things I couldn't achieve," she said. "I never realized the impact it had on me, but I then thought about the impact it had on everyone consuming these images. It can be so damaging for your mental health and body image."
At her very first shoot with Aerie in 2014, the brand made Iskra feel accepted for who she was. So that's what she wants to bring to her 4.5 million Instagram followers and the rest of the world: the notion that you are enough and the reminder of how prevalent and severe retouched images can be.
