Two-Pièce de Résistance: All-Star Cover Girls, 2006

I know I’m on record saying that more than two girls in a single photo is overkill. But …

Photo: Raphael Mazzucco

This one is different. These girls aren’t posing. They’re standing around in an unguarded moment. Some them seem to be laughing at a comment one of them made. They’re not twisting their bodies or finding their light or trying to tilt their “best sides” to the camera. They’re just … kind of … standing there. Being beautiful.

This particular shot is from Mazzucco’s book Exposure. The shoot is full of sultry, posed shots: one girl, two girls, all eight girls, purring at the camera, lounging on the sand, resting their bodies upon other bodies. “Heaven” is a great title for Walter Iooss Jr.’s swimsuit book, but it might even be more appropriate for Mazzucco’s. The fact that they’re all in white lends it an extra sense of eternal paradise.

I mean, good lord.

There’s something I find amazing about multi-girl shoots that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before.

Sara and Gigi, Julie and Jessica, Angie and Rebecca, Ashley and everyone — each girl knows she’s not only offering up her body as a male fantasy, she’s also allowing herself to be half that male fantasy. She’s collaborating with another model, knowing she won’t even be the exclusive focus of the male gaze. It’s that “objectification” thing I keep trying to describe (without sounding like a creep) — but multiplied.

Even now, after decades of looking at the swimsuit issue, I still have this joyful bewilderment that the models are okay with us looking. It’s that “permission” I’ve mentioned before. Every time a model in an interview makes some fun, winking, giggly reference to how small her swimsuit is, or how much skin she’s exposing, it brings a smile to my face. And here we have eight smiling models, all in on it together.

Same Suit, Different Babe-a-Palooza

I wish I knew more about this MTV 2002 swimsuit issue special. I stumbled across these photos from backstage. They’re from the same switcheroo event as this post, where the girls dressed in each others’ swimsuits.

In these shots, they also seem to be recreating some previous covers.

Here you can see Marisa Miller as Judit Masco (1990), Melissa Keller as Tyra Banks (1997), and Annie Morton as Valeria Mazza (1996). (They’re being photographed by Petra Nemcova, no idea if she’s in disguise.)

Chandra North plays Daniela Pestova (1995), Carla Maria plays Tannia Rubiano (1971), Ana Beatriz Barros plays Tyra Banks (1996), Vanessa Lorenzo plays, perhaps, Yamila Diaz (2002).

It’s interesting to see a lot of the same covers that have since gotten additional tributes.

Also, for good measure, Here’s Chandra dressed up as Elsa Benitez.

Looks like quite a party.

In any case, one of the girls being portrayed is Valeria Mazza, who’s 43 today.

Happy Birthday, Elsa Benitez

Glorious. Beautiful. 37 today.

Topless Tuesday: Elsa Benitez, 2004

Fetching Models

Yesterday, Swim Daily posted a video of the models discussing their dogs.

In honor of that, let's take a look at the lucky pups who have made their way into the pages of the swimsuit issue.

• • •

2014 UPDATE: Welcome to the club, Emily.

Two, Three, Four, Tell the People What She Wore

On this day in 1960, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Irina Shayk is dressed to commemorate, right down to the color of the polka dots.

But let us be colorblind and make today a celebration of polka dot bikinis from across the spectrum. 

50 Greatest Swimsuit Models, #10-1

This was fun. Naming 50 great models was easy, naming exactly 50 was hard. And forcing myself to decide if I preferred, say, Fernanda Motta or Stephanie Seymour was agonizing.

Meanwhile, I’ve spent the week contemplating beautiful women in swimsuits, so I’ve been in a pretty good mood.

Here’s where I landed for my top ten.

10: Julie Henderson

She's a divisive one. It surprises me how violently some people dislike her. The party line at Bellazon, for example, seems to be that she has a fantastic body but a bad face. They are continuously confused and dismayed that she keeps appearing in SI. Thankfully, they aren't in charge, and I continue to receive an influx of new Julie photos every February.  

9: Elsa Benitez

Warm. That's the first adjective that springs to mind about Elsa. Warm eyes, smile, skin. A slow, easy seductiveness that's impossible not to love.

8: Cheryl Tiegs

Shots like this one are timeless. A lot has changed with regards to standards of feminine beauty, styles of swimwear, photography and retouching technology, etc. But you look at this photo and understand why Cheryl was the original SI supermodel.

7: Christie Brinkley

She took the baton from Cheryl and ran with it. Hypnotic beauty, which persists to this day. Cheryl introduced wholesome, all-American blonde imagery to SI, Christie perfected it.

6: Petra Nemcova

Hauntingly ravishing. A warm, sunny, friendly gorgeousness with a dark river flowing beneath it. 

5: Rebecca Romijn

There is a direct line from Cheryl to Christie to Rebecca, then on to Kate after her. Brilliantly gorgeous American blonde + bikini = the backbone of the swimsuit issue.

4: Paulina Porizkova

My first cover. As a counterweight to the all-American blonde faction, Paulina is the darker Eastern European/Russian strain of SI model. Paulina lives on in the likes of Petra and Irina.

3: Stacey Williams

I agonized over this. Stacey and Heidi leapfrogged each other in my mind all week. Stacey’s hypnotizing eyes and cascading tendrils of brown hair have entranced me for over two decades.

2: Heidi Klum

But in the end, Heidi had a cover and more omnipresent career, and I figured that gave her an edge. Heidi is so deeply, inarguably beautiful it almost hurts.

1: Elle Macpherson

This one, I never had any dilemma about. The greatest model ever to wriggle into a swimsuit. As of now, I’m not sure who tops SI’s official list, but in my mind there is no doubt.

Pinups Within Pinups

I get a giddy little thrill when models display their own SI photos at launch events.

It’s almost its own subgenre of photo. “Here I am in eveningwear, displaying a photo of me in a bikini.” 

This puts me in mind of another subgenre that pops up from time to time. “Pinups Within Pinups.” Sometimes the girls will pose with images of other swimsuit girls in the shot.

Sometimes, it’s the same girl. For example, in this photo (I believe from 2004), we see Elsa Benitez posing in a bikini, showing us a photo of Elsa Benitez in a bikini.

Isabeli Fontana has somehow been given a bikini decorated with self portraits in this shot from 2003.

And in this “intimate” video from 2011, Izabel Goulart snaps a bunch of selfies and festoons her body with the Polaroids.

Sometimes the secondary pinup is worn by the SI model. We’ve previously enjoyed Amber Smith’s 1993 bathing beauty tattoo.

Jarah Mariano wears a swimsuit girl pattern on her top in 2008.

In 2009, Jessica Hart wears a bikini bottom, and a shirt with a bikini bottom design on it.

And sometimes, the pinup is just part of the scenery. Like Jessica White and Ariel Meredith on these boats in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Or Damaris Lewis and Genevieve Morton on these planes in 2010.

In 2002, Chandra North and Josie Maran found themselves in some kind of shack wallpapered with local pinups.

And in this preview tweet for 2011, Julie Henderson models what I’m sure is my favorite beer, without my even having to taste it: Bikini Blonde Lager.

I think part of the joy for me is the tacit endorsement. The models seem to be saying, “Yup, pinups of bikini babes exist. We’re cool with them. After all, we are them.”

And if Julie, Chandra, Ariel, and company approve of photos of bikini girls, who am I to feel guilty about enjoying them?