Ashley Graham just wants Barbie to have a little bit of cellulite.
On Monday, model Ashley Graham, 35, attended the Clase Azul National Tequila Day Dinner in New York just days after Barbie, the Greta Gerwig-directed ultra-pink epic film, debuted in theaters.
While sipping on her tequila drink of choice — a margarita, obviously — Graham told PEOPLE about her own history with Barbie and why she just wants the doll to have a little bit of cellulite.
In 2016, Graham launched her own plus-sized doll in collaboration with Mattel, mandating that the newly representative toy had absolutely no thigh gap. What Mattel wouldn’t budge on, however, was the possibility of giving the doll cellulite.
Now, with Gerwig’s Barbie joking about the same dimpled fat deposits in the skin, Graham opens up to PEOPLE exclusively about her reaction it all.
“I actually got to meet Margot [Robbie] in Utah at this conference months prior to Barbie,” Graham says. “I totally had a fangirl moment, walked straight up to the front, and I was like, ‘Hi, Margot Robbie. I am Ashley Graham. I just want to let you know there was a Barbie made in my likeness.’”
Graham continued to detail her doll: “It has boobs. It has hips. It has an ass. It has round arms. It has lower belly fat, but the only thing it doesn’t have is cellulite, and I wish it did. Are you putting cellulite in the movie?”
“I literally asked her and she started laughing and she was like, ‘There is an inside joke throughout the whole movie about cellulite,’” Graham recounts. “I was like, ‘Is that all you can tell me?’ And she’s like, ‘Yes.’ And so I waited for months.”
Cellulite is ultimately one of the major plot points in Barbie, with Robbie’s character starting to experience it as the separation between human and doll worlds begins to blur.
“Sure enough, I went and saw it and I was like, ‘Good,’ because you have to talk about it,” Graham notes. “I have it. We have it. It is what it is. And Barbie never had it. Ever. So I’m glad they talked about it and addressed it in their way.”
Still, the running gag didn’t fully achieve Graham’s goal from 2016, being a Barbie with genuine cellulite. While the threat of it looms, the cellulite never comes to fruition.
“Come on, cellulite Barbie,” Graham posits. “Where are you? Can we have cellulite Barbie?”
Though she’s still left asking for Cellulite Barbie, Graham tells PEOPLE she was overall pleased with Barbie — especially America Ferrera’s film-defining monologue, speaking on the vast double standards that women everywhere face.
“At that part, I screamed, ‘Yes!’” Graham says. “I couldn’t control it. Every woman in their mind says that to themselves.”
Earlier in July, Graham, who hosts HGTV competition series Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge, opened up on Today about the importance of creating new and diverse dolls, like her body-positive addition.
“If I would have had a Barbie that looked like my body shape growing up, I think my mind would have not been as traumatized,” Graham noted.
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