Big Bottoms

I’m a fan of bikini bottoms. Cute little high-wasted triangles of fabric that, for obvious reasons, you have to be female to wear. The V-shape really does something for me.

Jessica Gomes from 2009, would you care to demonstrate?Based on that, you’d think I’d be in a bit of a panic over a trend I noticed in the 2010 issue. Big bikini bottoms. Jessica Gomes from 2010, show them what I mean.
This isn’t even the biggest one by far. 2010 gave us pic after pic of models sporting bikini bottoms containing enough fabric to make two bikinis.Bar Refaeli

Jessica White

Julie Henderson

Brooklyn DeckerPelvis after pelvis, wallpapered. Is this a fashion trend? After years of seeing swimsuits slowly shrink, melting away from women’s bodies and exposing more and more square inches of skin, has some cabal of evil fashion designers decided that bikini bottoms have to retake their lost territory—and more? Sports Illustrated must have some significant links to the fashion world, and the swimsuit issue would be a place where a trend like that would be revealed to the general public.

I mean, look at this picture of Irina Shayk.That is the biggest bikini bottom I have ever seen in my life. Yards and yards of fabric encase her body from her upper thighs to her ribcage.

But you know what? She rocks it.

Seriously, this pic of Irina may be one of the greatest SI swimsuit pics of all time. I don’t know why it works. It’s like the suit has been beamed in from the 40s, yet it doesn’t seem stodgy.

That’s true throughout the magazine. What should strike me as looking like glorified granny panties are actually striking me as pretty sexy. Somehow, the bottoms emphasize the landscapes of the bodies a lot more intoxicatingly than skimpier ones would.

Of course, you could put these models in anything, and they’ll still look amazing. Maybe it’s as simple as that. And maybe it’s just a matter of variety. Bikini bottoms can’t get any smaller, so there’s nowhere to go but bigger.

I’m not ready to give up the tiny bottoms entirely, though. Luckily, I don’t think I’ll have to.

Jessica?