Get a High-Cut, Hippy!

I feel I’ve droned on a bit about the high-cut swimsuits of the 80s and how they shaped my interest in the female body. But I’m impressed with how well 2018 has been infused with that decade.

It’s not just the cut of the suits. It’s the color schemes, patterns, accessories — maybe even the type of posing. I don’t know enough about modeling or photography to delve into the secret sauce, but I get a deep stirring of déjà vu at how well they invoke the decade I discovered the swimsuit issue.

These shots of Vita and Kate look for all the world like posters I might have hung in my bedroom in 1987.

And Hailey in this dream of neon yellow and grape-candy purple and retro roller skates makes me feel like I’m in seventh grade again.

But yeah, that high-cut thigh. Rookie Chase Carter even touches on it a bit in her Uncovered video. (She also makes a point of name-dropping Elle Macpherson, so that earns her additional points with me.)

I like Chase. She strikes me as a cuter Hannah Davis.

She also gives us this year's top-but-no-bottom entry.

Anyway, it’s high-cut heaven. And some girls seem determined to go above and beyond. There’s a lot of grabbing the hips and pulling skyward, as if to say “You want to see an acute angle? I’ll show you an acute angle!”

This Vogue article from last summer suggests this isn’t just pastiche. We might be in the midst of a legitimate reinvigoration of this cut. (A few familiar SI faces and bodies pop up in that article.)

Count me in.