Grand Swimsuitification Theory

A few years ago, I extolled the virtues of Ashley Richardson’s extroversion, linking her with 40 other swimsuit models through SI’s multiple-girl shoots.

There’s another rich vein of connected models, but unfortunately it is mutually exclusive from Ashley’s.

You may remember Julie Henderson’s rookie year, in which she posed with Jessica White on the football field.

Julie also appears in this 3D video with Irina Shayk and Alyssa Miller.

And she pops up in this lovely black and white photo with Brooklyn Decker. The shot doesn’t appear in SI (and in fact there’s no swimsuit to be seen in the photo). But I found it on Walter Iooss’s website, and I can’t think of any other campaign those three people have all been part of, so I’m going to count it as an SI-adjacent photo.

Brooklyn, of course, is good friends with Chrissy Teigen, and this behind-the-scenes photo of the two of them is from an SI shoot.

And Chrissy’s cover provided a nice threesome with Lily Aldridge and Nina Agdal.

Nina disguised herself as Valeria Mazza alongside a Tyra Banks-ified Ariel Meredith.

Ariel took her Route 66 road trip with Ashley Smith, Hannah Ferguson, and Sara Sampaio.

And of course Sara’s rookie year paired her up with fellow rookie Gigi Hadid.

So we have a string of 13 girls. I wish there was a way to connect this group with Ashley Richardson’s group, but for now they remain mutually exclusive.

I could EASILY link them — and add lots more models — if I counted this “Legends” group photo. However, despite the bared midriffs and heaved cleavage, I consider these models to be fully clothed, so in my heart I must leave them apart.

(I also strongly suspect that not all the Legends are actually in the same shot. Kathy in particular looks Photoshopped in.)