Two-Pièce de Résistance: Ashley Richardson, 1991

I know she’s the Queen of the One-Piece, but …

Photo: Walter Iooss Jr.

… this is a perfect bikini pic.

It’s actually remarkably similar to Karen Mulder’s shot from six years later. Blonde bombshell, swervy pose, turquoise bikini. I guess I have a “type.”

But Ashley’s pose is more presentational. Here’s a head-on look at her magnificent, voluptuous body. A platonic ideal of a bikini top and bottom, laid out upon Ashley for our enjoyment.

For me, there’s a kind of silliness to the pose as well. The tousled hair, the pressed-together thighs, the pouty lips aimed off to the heavens … It’s like she’s doing a parody of a sexy pose, “playing at” being a bathing beauty.

When you watch Ashley in her making-of videos, she clearly has a sense of humor. She goofs around, cracks jokes, and seems to relish the bizarreness of what she’s doing: prancing through the snow in a swimsuit, straddling a fence in a swimsuit, lathering soap bubbles on her chest while thigh-deep in a jacuzzi in a swimsuit, etc.

In a lot of behind-the-scenes SI videos, a girl will pull an exaggerated, silly “sexy” move, like winking at the camera or wriggling her hips or blowing a kiss. The wonderful thing is, their cartoonish, ironic sexiness still comes across as sexy. They can’t escape it, no matter how corny they try to make it.

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?

Craig’s List

Two more additions to Ashley Richardson’s web of influence were hiding in plain sight on my blog.

The photo I shared here, in my exposé on SI’s Kenya obsession, puts Charissa Craig with Carol Alt in 1982.

Carol posed with Kelly Emberg in 1983.

Kelly posed with Kathy Ireland in 1989.

Kathy posed with Rachel Hunter on the cover in 1994.

And of course Rachel ran on the beach with Ashley in 1990.

This gives Charissa an “Ashley Number” of 5. She’s the only model with that number of steps.

I also already posted this 1990 photo of Sabrina Barnett back in 2015, when Swim Daily posted its first (and only) entry in their “It Takes Two” series.

This photo with Rachel gives Sabrina an Ashley Number of 2.

These two girls, along with Frankie Rayder from 2005, bring the number of Ashley-connected models to 43.

Bonus Topless Tuesday: Carolyn Murphy, Frankie Rayder, 2005

Happened across this photo, and I'm sharing it here because it adds Frankie Rayder to the Ashley Richardson Extended Universe.

Frankie posed with Carolyn on the table of contents page in 2005.

Carolyn posed with Rachel on the cover in 2006.

Rachel posed with Ashley in this neon kaleidoscope from 1990.

I bet there are even more models I'll rediscover eventually.

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1994

Ashley Richardson was busy this year, despite the birth of relatively few SI girls.


On March 20, she brought us Vita.

On April 16, she paired up with Vendela and brought us Kate Wasley.

And on October 26, hypnotist Britta Dubbels conjured Rose Bertram. (Thank you, Britta.)

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1993

So, it's looking more and more like the swimsuit issue will be later than normal this year. Normally we'd be a month out at this point, and there'd have been plenty of communications about it. But other than a bit of activity last year, there's been a whole lot of silence.

As long as this February won't bring us any new photos, we might as well look at a February past. A couple of under-the-radar models graced us on 2/19/93: Shana Zadrick was the calendar girl and Tanya Mityushina was born.

A couple weeks later, we got Bregje Heinen and Judit Masco on March 5.

After couple more weeks, we had a collaboration between two cover girls: Kathy Ireland welcomed Danielle Herrington on the 26th.

And on October 8, Ashley Richardson introduced us to Barbara Palvin, for which we should be quite grateful.

I can't leave without mentioning Adaora. I believe she was born in 1993, but I can't for the life of me find the actual date. So here she is, in all her loveliness.

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1992 Part 1

1992 provided an excellent crop of swimsuit models.

On February 12, under the Everhart zodiac sign, Valerie van der Graaf arrived.

The following week, under Ashley's watchful one-piece, we met newly minted rookie Camille Kostek.

Soon after, on March 1, Judit Masco introduced us to Bo Krsmanovic.

Then on March 26 (quite an eventful couple of months), Nina Agdal arrived, under the lounging figure of Monica Bellucci.

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1991 Part 2

Now this was a beautiful week. On July 21, 1991, Sara Sampaio was welcomed by a tag team of Judit Masco and Akure Wall.

On September 4, Cris Urena's arrival was overseen by Ashley Richardson.

Kathy's third appearance coincided with Sofia Resing's birth on September 25.

And Kirby Griffin was born on November 14, under the sign of Elle.

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1990

The very first week of the very first Swimsuit Desk Calendar. Stephanie Seymour, clinging to a rock while wearing that beautiful yellow one-piece thong. I remember it well, which makes it kind of astonishing that Stephanie presided over the birth of Michelle Vawer, a model whose one year in the swimsuit issue was already seven years ago.

But there’s Michelle’s birthday. Wednesday, January 3.


A few weeks later, Elle Macpherson was displayed on desks everywhere as future Rookie of the Year Kelly Rohrbach entered the world on Sunday the 21st.

Rachel Hunter offers Hannah Davis a pinch to grow an inch on Hannah’s birthday, May 5.

The next day, May 6, Ashley Richardson guided Jasmyn Wilkins into the world. You saw a lot more one-piecers in the issues and calendars of the late 80s/early 90s.

SI swimsuit legend Christie Brinkley welcomes SI swimsuit legend Lais Ribeiro on October 5.

And finally, two different girls — Ashley Smith and Chanel Iman — arrived (ironically) during a week with an unattached twin. They were born November 26 and December 1, respectively. According to the caption, that week's model was Yvonne Sylvander, but if it was actually Yvette who would know?

Rookie Reveal #6: Robyn Lawley

Robyn. Looks. Fantastic.

She's definitely not as "plus" as some of the photos we've seen from elsewhere. But she's definitely got curves.

I don't know what the evolving definition is for "plus-size," but I wonder if Robyn's body is all that different from Ashley Richardson's.

In any case, Robyn's got some beautiful landscape to linger over.

One-Piece Wednesday: Ashley Richardson, 1991

Weekly Planner Week, Part 4

A few more redundancies from the desk calendars.

9/26/93: “Vendela knows her net worth.”

8/7/95: “Aya ponders her net worth.”

4/8/90: “Things are looking up for Elle.”

5/8/95: “Everything’s looking up for Stacey.”

2/4/90: “A giant step for Ashley.”

7/17/95: “One giant leap for Patricia.”

1/19/92: “A starring role for Judit.”

8/14/95: “Lana plays a starring role.”

12/29/92 (93 calendar): “Stephanie poses no problem.”

11/21/94: “Kathy poses no problems.”

The Queen of the One-Piece Displays Her Midriff

Of course, Ashley Richardson is not all one-piecers. She rocks a bikini too. And this is one of my favorite Ashley photos:

In fact, I’d say it’s one of my all-time favorite SI swimsuit photos.

Six Degrees of Ashley Richardson

Ashley is a good collaborator. She’s done shoots with Judit Masco, Angie Everhart, Rachel Hunter, and more.

I began to see her as the Kevin Bacon of the swimsuit issue. If you look at who she’s posed with, and who those girls have posed with, you create a web that encompasses a not-insignificant percentage of SI models.

Let me try something. I’m going to go to Wikipedia and click the “random article” button. We’ll see if I can link that topic to Ashley somehow.

. . .

Okay, I came up with Dara Torres. You remember her, the Olympic swimmer who showed grace in competition when she delayed a race so a fellow swimmer had time to address some swimsuit problems?

But how to link her to Ashley? Hmm, I may have bit off more than I can—

Wait! Dara was in the swimsuit issue, back in 1994! Here she is, flanked by Kathy Ireland and Elle Macpherson.

Of course, Elle and Kathy were on the cover of that issue, along with Rachel Hunter.

And that’s Rachel in the pink suit, way in the background, while Ashley jogs in her green suit in the foreground. 

Here’s a probably poorly designed and possibly incomplete chart of Ashley’s influence. By my count, you can connect her to 40 other models.

If it’s true that the 50th anniversary issue will feature some veterans returning, who knows? This list may explode. If we could link Ashley to the Brazilian beauties from 2007, or to some combo of Jessica White/Julie Henderson/Brooklyn Decker/Chrissy Tiegen, her web will just get bigger.

Unfortunately, SI doesn’t do multiple-girl shoots much anymore. So connecting the models is a dying art.

In any case, if you assign an “Ashley Richardson Number” to each model based on her distance from Ashley, you come up with the following:

Ashley Richardson Number: 0

Ashley Richardson

Ashley Richardson Number: 1

Rachel Hunter

Louise Vyent

Michaela Bercu

Anna Getaneh

Maria von Hartz

Akure Wall

Vendela

Shana Zadrick

Gail O’Neill

Roshumba Williams

Angie Everhart

Judit Masco

Ashley Richardson Number: 2

Stephanie Seymour

Elle Macpherson

Kathy Ireland

Veronica Blume

Rebecca Romijn

Paulina Porizkova

Tyra Banks

Stacey Williams

Cheryl Tiegs

Christie Brinkley

Heidi Klum

Veronica Varekova

Daniela Pestova

Elsa Benitez

Carolyn Murphy

Yamila Diaz

Valeria Mazza

Ashley Richardson Number: 3

Georgiana Robertson

Monika Schnarre

Jean Pelton

Dara Torres

Kelly Emberg

Britta Dubbels

Ingrid Seynhaeve

Petra Nemcova

Girl in the Pool with Christie (UPDATE: It's Maria João)

Ashley Richardson Number: 4

Kim Alexis

Carol Alt

Thank you for bringing us all together, Ashley. You are a beacon to us all.