Iskra Lawrence Strips Down to Her Underwear on the Subway to Encourage Others to Appreciate Their Bodies

Iskra Lawrence spoke to subway riders about loving their bodies while wearing only her underwear

Iskra Lawrence isn’t shy about posing in her underwear — even on a crowded subway car.

The body positive activist and model, 26, walked onto a subway car in a dress, and then stripped down to her underwear while speaking to the passengers about her mission to get them all to love and appreciate their bodies.

“I want to make myself vulnerable today so you can see clearly that I’ve come on with my own body and how I feel about myself today,” she tells the crowd in a YouTube video she created as part of the #UNMUTED series. “I’m going to reveal myself to you to prove that we are in control of how we feel about ourselves.”

Lawrence admits to the crowd that she didn’t always feel proud of her body.

“I grew up hating what I saw in the mirror because society told me I was not good enough,” she says. “I thought there was something wrong because I didn’t have a thigh gap, that I had cellulite, that I wasn’t skinny enough. That is the media, that is society making a small standard of beauty, when we are so much more than that.”

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Lawrence goes on to explain that we are all more than what we look like.

“I really hope by sharing this with you today is that you are going to see yourself differently,” she says. “Every single one of us has so much value and so much worth that is so much more than just skin. This is just our vessel, so please, when you look in the mirror when you get home, don’t pick our your insecurities, do not look at the things that society has told you was not good enough, because you are so much more than that.”

The model encourages everyone to love themselves, rather than criticize themselves.

“You deserve to love yourself, you deserve to feel comfortable and confident, and I really hope that you connected with me today and that you’re going to take something away from this,” she says to a round of applause. “Thank you for all being so different and special and unique because that’s what makes us beautiful.”