Iskra Lawrence boasts 5 million followers on Instagram alone, and has a body care brand that’s nearing $100 million in revenue.
But her journey through modeling, working as a creator and entrepreneurship has had many facets.
“I started modeling when I was 12 years old in the U.K.,” Lawrence said on WWD’s Beauty of Tomorrow podcast. “I ran against the problem of size inclusivity. I was told for the first 10 years of my career that I was always too big, bearing in mind I was probably a U.S. [size] 4 at the time.”
Lawrence, who had to wear pads to fill out clothes as a plus-size model, started getting vocal about her journey on Instagram, landed a campaign with Aerie, and hit 1 million followers practically overnight. “I had this community backing me and saying, ‘this is what we want to see,’” Lawrence said. “It enabled me to essentially challenge these billion-dollar businesses to do better, to stop retouching, to be more size-inclusive. And that led to the decision to create my own brand.”
After recovering from postpartum depression following the birth of her son, Lawrence came up with the idea for Saltair. “It is hopefully gifting people this moment of imagining your toes in the sand, waves crashing, sun kissing your skin and you’re breathing in the salt air,” she said. “That is what I wanted to bottle and gift to as many people as I could.”
Lawrence’s next milestone for the brand? “We’re getting to a point where we want to reach $100 million in revenue,” she said. “We’re very close, and that takes a lot of work.”
To listen to the full conversation, CLICK HERE.
