Iskra Arabella Lawrence (born 11 September 1990) is an English model represented by JAG Models and Models1. Lawrence models for, and is the global Role Model for, Aerie, a brand of clothing from American Eagle Outfitters. She is also a National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) brand ambassador and creator of the NEDA Inspires Award.
Lawrence was born in Wolverhampton and grew up in Kidderminster, Worcestershire from the age of 6 weeks. Lawrence attended Malvern St James and then Bromsgrove School, was a competitive national swimmer, and was accepted into the UK National Youth Theatre at 15.
Lawrence does not allow any of her Instagram photos to be retouched in any way to enhance her image. She actively calls out “body shamers”, and has even taken on a “body shamer” via Instagram. She does not want to be classified as a plus-sized model.
She is a model for the American Eagle Outfitters lingerie line, Aerie. She has also modeled for lingerie brand, Adore Me. After 13 years of modeling Lawrence completed her catwalk debut at New York Fashion Week for Chromat, and walked in L’Oréal’s first fashion show at Paris Fashion week in October 2017. In February 2017 Lawrence presented “Ending the pursuit of perfection” at TEDxUniversityofNevada.
In 2016, she was chosen as one of BBC’s World’s 100 Women, and one of the six women chosen for World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts Great Girl Leaders.
In 2017 Lawrence appeared in the Straight Curve documentary “about body image and the industry leaders challenging society’s unrealistic and dangerous standards of beauty”. American Eagle Outfitters choose Lawrence along with five other millennials for their Fall 2017 jean campaign “The New American Jean” which makes use of unretouched images.
Lawrence was listed in the ‘multi-hyphenates’ category of the 2017 Maxim HOT 100.
She was a contributor to Self magazine, and was the founding managing editor at Runway Riot, a website meant to be an outlet for women of all shapes and sizes to learn about glamour.
On April 16th 2020 she gave birth to her first child with boyfriend Philip Payne.
UPDATE: On September 22nd 2024 she gave birth to her second child with boyfriend Philip Payne.