Just 13 months after being declared cancer-free, Isabella Strahan stood on a photo shoot set modeling loungewear for Kim Kardashian’s Skims. Her twin sister Sophia stood beside her. The August 2025 campaign marked more than another modeling job for the 20-year-old USC student. It represented survival.
The Skims Campus Collection launched August 7, 2025, featuring Isabella and Sophia Strahan alongside college students from universities across the country. Their father, Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan, watched his daughters step into a spotlight Isabella nearly lost forever.
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The Campus Collection Campaign
Skims built its back-to-school line around real college students rather than professional models. The brand recruited undergraduates from USC, University of Alabama, Duke, San Diego State, Northeastern, and Wisconsin-Madison to showcase loungewear designed for campus life.
The collection includes soft ribbed sets, casual tees, foldover capris, and flannel pants from Skims’ Cotton Rip, Logo Pointelle, and Cotton Poplin lines. Sophia wore plaid purple pants with a lavender hoodie. Isabella modeled a red set with micro-shorts and a matching sleep shirt.
Both twins shared behind-the-scenes content on Instagram. “Spent the best day on set with @skims,” Sophia wrote. Their talent agency, SMAC Entertainment, announced the partnership publicly on August 5.
From Diagnosis to Recovery
Isabella’s path to this photo shoot started with headaches in September 2023. She was one month into her freshman year at USC when nausea and balance problems began. She thought it was vertigo.
On October 25, 2023, she threw up blood. An MRI at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles revealed a golf ball-sized tumor in the back of her brain. Doctors diagnosed medulloblastoma, a malignant brain tumor that affects roughly 300 to 500 Americans each year.
Two days later, on October 27, Isabella underwent emergency brain surgery. She turned 19 the next day.
What followed was six months of treatment at Duke Cancer Institute in North Carolina. She completed 30 radiation sessions over six weeks. Complications required two additional emergency surgeries to drain fluid and replace part of her skull with a titanium plate. She finished four rounds of chemotherapy by June 2024, two fewer than originally planned.
On July 18, 2024, doctors declared her cancer-free. Scans showed no evidence of disease.
Rebuilding a Modeling Career
Isabella had already started modeling before her diagnosis. She worked with Sephora in 2024 during her treatment. But her first campaign after being declared cancer-free came in March 2025 with Kenneth Cole’s “Purposeful Voices” collection.
Kenneth Cole himself told Good Morning America he was inspired by how Isabella handled her illness. “I appreciate her allowing us to help her tell her story as part of our Purposeful Voices campaign,” he said.
The Skims campaign represents her third major project and her first alongside Sophia.
A Father’s Pride
Michael Strahan rushed to Los Angeles when Isabella got her diagnosis, temporarily leaving his Good Morning America hosting duties for what he called “personal family matters.” He stayed involved throughout her treatment.
When SMAC Entertainment posted the Skims campaign reveal, Michael commented publicly: “So proud of my girls! Love you both!”
On Good Morning America the morning after the campaign launched, he added with a laugh that the photo shoot was “the best they have gotten along I have ever seen.”
Twin sister Sophia, who also attends USC, supported Isabella through every hospital stay and treatment session. “I’m so lucky to have the most amazing sister and best friend in the world,” Sophia wrote on Instagram during Isabella’s treatment. “The last few months have been so much harder than we could have ever imagined, but it’s made me realize just how strong you are.”
Back at USC
Isabella returned to USC in August 2024, one month after finishing treatment. She joined a sorority and jumped back into college life.
“When I was going through treatment, it was the one thing,” she said in a November 2025 interview. “You really don’t miss it when you’re doing it, but when you’re not in school and you can’t be in school, it’s the one thing you want to do.”
She continues regular MRI scans to monitor for any return of the cancer. In January 2025, she posted a YouTube video describing her latest scan as “the hardest MRI I’ve ever done,” though results continued to show no signs of disease.
Dr. David Ashley, the neuro-oncologist who led her treatment at Duke, said the odds favor Isabella. “Chances are good that this tumor will never come back. But because there is still a small chance it could, we will monitor her closely.”
What She Learned
In a February 2025 ABC documentary about her cancer fight, Isabella talked about what the experience taught her.
“I learned how you should advocate for yourself,” she said. “I think I should have known something was wrong earlier, and it’s always important to trust yourself and trust your body.”
She also wanted people to understand that finishing treatment doesn’t mean the fight is over. “I think people sometimes confuse ringing the bell with being cancer-free,” she explained. “Sometimes it’s not the case for everyone.”
Her father echoed that reality. “There will not be a time where she’s getting a scan where I won’t be on pins and needles,” Michael Strahan said in the documentary. “I don’t care if it’s 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now, you’ll always be nervous.”
Moving Forward
The Skims Campus Collection went live at 9 AM Pacific on August 7. By the time it launched, Isabella Strahan had already proven something more important than any campaign success.
She survived medulloblastoma. She returned to school. She rebuilt her modeling career. And now she stands on photo shoots with her sister, wearing loungewear designed for college students living ordinary lives.
For Isabella and Sophia Strahan, the Skims ad represents exactly that: two twins getting back to ordinary.
