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| Photo: Robert Huntzinger |
It’s got everything. Two SI stars in their prime. Magnificent candy-colored bikinis in platonic-ideal cuts. A front view alongside a back view.
Readers opened the February 12, 1990 issue to pages 126-127 to see these ladies, bled to the edges of what should have been but inexplicably wasn’t the centerfold.
Although I have stated that an overabundance of nearly-identical poses in the same suit is a shortcoming of the modern swimsuit issue, making it harder to pinpoint single, iconic shots, I do have to praise some variants of this shot that are floating around the internet.
The subtle differences in poses — arms, heads, legs — give you a little
taste of what the shoot would have been like, almost creating a
flip-book in your mind: Watch Elle and Kathy luxuriating side by side,
gently writhing their semi-submerged bodies. My head swims to think
about it.
The caption describes them as keeping cool in the “Cotton House pool” on the private island of Mustique.
There
are a couple of pools on the Cotton House resort grounds, each of which
features a curve along the edge. But based on the tiling, I think this
must be the pool at “The Residence,” a private suite with rates I’m not
even going to bother looking up, so it’s one swimsuit mecca I will never
visit except through these photos.
5 comments:
I don't know why, but I love someone else pinpointing where a shot was taken. Nice to know I'm not the only one who has ever done that lol.
I have to say, i prefer the more full-length, full-body versions of this photo rather than the iconic cropped version at the top. Everyone knows about The Body, but Kathy Ireland's body, for all her sweet girl-next-door appeal, was absolutely spectacular as well: The length of her legs, the perfect tapering from the hips to the ankles, the healthy muscle tone of her back...I could go on and on!
FYI towards the end of the coffee table book "Sports Illustrated Knockouts: Five Decades of Swimsuit Photography" there is a small behind-the-scenes photo from this shoot. It depicts a brief pause in the action, during which Elle Macpherson stands over Kathy Ireland and methodically adjusts the "bottom of the bottom" of Kathy Ireland's bikini so that it fits just right.
Minor correction: The behind-the-scenes photo in question is not towards the end of the book, rather it comes a bit before the half-way point.
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