Exclusive: Ashanti wants women to ’embrace their bodies’ with her new PLT collection

Having sold more than 15 million records worldwide, Ashanti is taking a leap into the world of fashion.

With five studio albums and movies such as John Tucker Must Die and Coach Carter on her CV, she has long been a staple in noughties pop culture. The singer has now released a collection with PrettyLittleThing, where she wants woman to empower themselves through their clothing. We exclusively chatted to Ashanti about her new collection and about what she wants from the future, and let's just say she has big dreams. When asked why, out of all the fashion brands in the world, she chose to work with PrettyLittleThing, she said: "I love what PrettyLittleThing is doing for women. Embracing every woman's shape, size and colour. It’s all about women empowerment." The Grammy Award winning artist worked alongside the PLT design team and her sister's digital creative agency for the past 3 months to design her own 74 piece collection. Unlike many brands, the collection will serve sizes 4-24, giving women of all shapes a wide range of holiday wear options. "I travel around the world to so many tropical places, I wanted pieces that felt exotic and global. The Amazon meets the Caribbean," she said. "Whether it’s on a yacht, hitting the jet skis, laying by the pool or soaking up the sun on the beach I’m always looking for the best swimsuits. PrettyLittleThing is huge and exudes women empowerment, celebrating all women, shapes, sizes, colours and cultures. "[For me], infusing music and fashion has always been perfect. I just felt like this was a perfect fit at the perfect time. I love the demographic and I love celebrating women!” But has she always wanted to work in fashion? Has this always been in the pipeline? Well, Ashanti admitted: "It’s not something that I dreamt about, but as far as bathing suits are concerned, I want women to feel confident and sexy," so that's why she took a deep dive into swimwear for this particular line. As for the future? It seems like Ashanti might dip her toe into various worlds and professions, but for now she is "continuing to build my empire, through music, film, TV and personally [too]." PrettyLittleThingxAshanti officially launched online today, and you can check it out here.