Yes, THAT Hemingway

You may have noticed a couple of shots from the 2019 issue where Anne de Paula and Robin Holzken are posing on trucks labeled “Hemingways.”

This is part of the Hemingways Collection, a trio of luxury, amenity-filled resorts. SI made ample use of their safari experience for 2019’s Kenya shoot.

The name of the resorts is inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s fondness for Kenya, but something tells me Ernest probably roughed it more than this Simba Tent with enormous double bedrooms and on-site butler.

In any case, this truck is not the first Hemingway to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. This is Margaux (née Margot) Hemingway. She was Ernest’s granddaughter.

She’s another Cindy/Amber/Sarah girl: one-hit wonder, and only one photo from that year.

Here she is as she was revealed to readers in 1975, nestled between already-established SI swimsuit royalty Cheryl Tiegs on the left, and rookie superstar-in-the-making Christie Brinkley on the right.

Her story has a sad end. She was mired in addiction, a faltering career, and depression, and she committed suicide in 1996.
 

I have occasionally wondered if she’s the only SI swimsuit model who is no longer living. She might be. I haven’t done any deep research into it, because it would be time-consuming and morbid. But it’s a magazine with over half a century’s worth of models. Margaux just might be the first casualty.

Fruit Friday: Cheryl Tiegs, 1978

 

Topless Tuesday: Jessica White, 2008

Twenty-Twenty, Won

Tanaye White and Kathy Jacobs are the newly minted rookies for 2021, meaning I didn’t get my wish.

However, Tanaye was one of the girls I was rooting for in last year’s model search, so let’s consider it a delayed victory.

In fact, here’s a fun photo. Two future model search winners, Class of 2020 and Class of 2021, in their black-bikini’d glory.

Tanaye seems to have slimmed down and muscled up a bit since her 2019 model search photos, which is a bit of a shame. But that magnificent sphere of hair is new too, and I very much enjoy that.

Kathy is good looking. Pretty amazing body, regardless of her age.

This is a tired complaint I keep making, but we’ve discarded so many wonderful models after one year, or two years, or even zero years if they’re not selected from their model searches. Chase Carter, for example, grabbed me immediately, so that years later I’m still pining after what might have been. 

None of this year’s candidates grabbed me like that.

The thing is, I don’t think they’re supposed to anymore. There’s clearly been a shift in what the swimsuit issue is trying to be.

Five years ago, in a post that touched on (then-)potential rookies Robin Lawley, Ashley Graham, and Marquita Pring, I wrote “I don’t think SI necessarily has a responsibility to change standards of beauty (they’re more in the business of harnessing those standards for profit).”

But now they seem to have taken up the cause of changing those standards of beauty. Trying to nudge the Overton window a bit.

As Tyra Banks said in this Fashionista article:
“Of course, it's male gaze. Duh. … But, it's not just that and so what I love about what's happening now is the woman looking at the swimsuit issue can see all of these different myriads of beauty that can possibly reflect her. … And the man can look at it and see not just what he was trained to like [by society], but go, 'why am I tingling when I'm looking at this photo of Hunter [McGrady] or Tara Lynn?' It's digging deep into what he truly is attracted to, but hasn't been trained to like."

And part of me, let’s call it my superego, thinks that’s good. I’m in favor of inclusivity, I’m in favor of opening up the standards of beauty so people don’t feel ostracized or inferior.

But there’s another part of me, let’s call it my id, that says “Why can’t the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue be the realm of impossibly beautiful women? That’s what the swimsuit issue is for. We all know it’s for fantasy purposes only. Fill it with Sara Sampaios and Chase Carters and Rose Bertrams and Raven Lyns and all the other girls we didn’t get enough of.”

I want my little island of unrealistic hotness.

MJ Day said in this Bustle interview:
"Kate [Upton], when she was on her first cover [in 2012] — people straight up called her fat. With this issue, people are coming after SI saying, 'Oh you're all about body diversity, but why is Kate Upton on the cover again?'" Day says. "I love that, because you know what that means? It means we have come so far in just five years."

This is a little different from my memory of Kate Upton’s arrival on the scene. I do remember people from the fashion world voicing the opinion that Kate wasn’t thin enough for their shows. But the red-blooded American hetero men of the world, the magazine’s ostensible audience? They immediately hailed her as their new bikini queen. I mean, it was unanimous. Everybody loved Kate.

Her Highness.

I’m not sure Kate Upton was really a swimsuit issue trailblazer. Robyn Lawley, introduced in 2015, was a significant step, though I felt that she had a very Ashley Richardson body. 

 

Ashley Graham, 2016 — she was an iconoclast.

Anyway, I’m torn. I don’t want to be one of those “OH NO THE SJWS ARE TRYING TO MAKE BONERS ILLEGAL” idiots. But I do kind of miss the yearly injection of plain-old message-free hotness.

The “good clean dirty fun” of the swimsuit issue was what inspired this blog in the first place. There was something retro about it, not just as a throwback to earlier years of the swimsuit issue, but as a throwback to pinups in general, on teens’ bedroom walls and WWII fighter planes. Maybe I liked that it was something we as a society were “getting away with” to some extent, kind of a naughty alcove of old-fashioned cheesecake, with its smiles and sand and cleavage peeks.

Fruit Friday: Solveig, 2015

A little behind-the-scenes pic I found somewhere of Solveig, captured moments after she discovered gravity.

Thumb-Hook Thursday: Genevieve Morton, 2014

Genevieve takes her thumbs to the top deck.

Vote.

You can now vote for this year's Swim Search girl and help select 2021's first rookie.

I know the world is holding its breath waiting for my endorsement, so I hereby humbly suggest Jamea Lynee. Great bod, adorable face, magnificent hair.

And she rocks a one-piece.

One-Piece Wednesday: Ashley Richardson, 1993

I've been flipping through old issues.

How much of my affinity for the 80s and 90s is due to the fact that I was a hormonal teen/young man at the time? How much is due to better photography and art direction?

Topless Tuesday: Irina Shayk, 2015

Underboob Monday: Scissor Sisters

I wish I had a photo of this top in the process of being snipped ...

... so I could make a triptych with these other two t-shirts getting cut down to size.

But as far as I know, that action shot doesn't exist. So here's Kate Upton in Esquire from 7 years ago.

One-Hit Wonder: Charissa Craig, 1982

Now that she's been added to the Ashley canon, she should get her own one-hit wonder post.

Here are a couple pretty gorgeous shots.

In the Palm of Your Sand

Like all red-blooded American males, I look to the swimsuit issue for one thing: tips on using coconut oil in my day-to-day life. Swim Daily came through with recommended products for hair care, skin care, and, um, lube.

So let us celebrate that most platonic ideal of tropical fruit, the coconut, which obviously makes several appearances in our favorite magazine. In fact, I bet there are lots more examples I’ve missed.

And just for the obligatory “Put the Lime in the Coconut” reference…

Jojo Nabbed It

Josephine Skriver is 2020’s Rookie of the Year.

I don’t think it’s a surprise, as she came in with a pretty solid built-in fan base.

I do wish they’d selected someone a bit more dynamic. The models who grabbed me were Hyunjoo Hwang …

… and Lorena Duran.

Valentina Sampaio looks gorgeous. SI would have gotten a tidal wave of internet backlash from idiots, but it would have been a brave and strong stance.

Josephine is beautiful, but I find her to be a bit of a straightforward, thin, white model who — once again — is captured better by our friends at Victoria’s Secret.

But here’s a nice thumb-hook from her, in honor of the day.

Thumb-Hook Thursday: Carol Alt, 1989

Not just a thumb-hook, but a whole-hand-hook.

Carol looks stunning here.