Fresh-Squeezed Fruit Friday: Barbara and Emily

Here are Barbara Palvin (2019) and Emily DiDonato (2016) showing a mango and an orange, respectively, no mercy on the beach.

For good measure, here are alternate shots of the girls actually eating the fruit. The methods, especially Emily's, are questionable...

Perfect Tens

These are my ten favorite SI models who’ve been introduced to us during this blog’s existence (not counting the one-hit wonders, who got their own list).

#10 Haley Kalil (model search 2018, rookie 2019)

(Yep, she’s new, but I have good feelings about her.)

First appearance: March 24, 2018, A Real Camille & Kalil Reveal

• • •

#9 Myla Dalbesio (2017)

First appearance: February 7, 2017, Christie’s Back

• • •

#8 Hannah Ferguson (2014)

First appearance: February 5, 2014, Latest Rookie Reveal: Hannah Ferguson

• • •

#7 Emily DiDonato (2013)

First appearance: February 5, 2013, Countdown: 7 Days to Go

• • •

#6 Bo Krsmanovic (2016)

First appearance: February 14, 2017, Northern Exposure

• • •

#5 Rose Bertram (2015)

First appearance: February 2, 2015, Rookie reveal #3: Rose Bertram

• • •

#4 Hailey Clauson (2015)
First appearance: May 5, 2014, A Bit of a Shayk-Up

• • •

#3 Barbara Palvin (2016)

First appearance: November 18, 2012, Missing the Complexities (several years before she was an SI girl!)

• • •

#2 Lais Ribeiro (2017)

First appearance: February 7, 2017, Christie’s Back

• • •

#1 Sara Sampaio (2014)

First appearance: February 4, 2014, Whaddaya Want, a Rookie?

The ranking is subject to change, depending on whichever recent photos I've seen. (UPDATE: In fact, I just moved Barbara Palvin up to #3. I previously had her at #5 for some reason.) I had to make some tough cuts. Vita Sidorkina and Kelsey Merritt were the last to be dismissed. Sorry, girls, I love you all!

Re-Vita-lized

Some great news dropped this week! 2020 will mark the return of two of my favorite models of this decade, two girls I thought had disappeared forever from SI.

Vita Sidorkina …

… and Emily DiDonato …

… are shooting in Wyoming, for some reason.

That means this graphic is now happily obsolete.

I don’t think it hit me how long Emily has been gone! She skipped three swimsuit issues.

Those three issues, but the way, exactly line up with Danielle Harrington’s three appearances.

And she’s back too, in case you were harboring any conspiracy theories about Emily and Danielle being the same person.

It seems like just yesterday that the 2019 issue came out, and it kind of was. The May release screwed up my internal swimsuit clock. I wonder if 2020 will be a return to February, or if we have another long wait until spring.

Underboob Monday: Emily DiDonato, 2015

ROTY Revisited: 2012, 2013

More years, more rookies to second-guess.

2012: Who won?
Nina Agdal.

Who should have won?
Probably Nina Agdal. She was a pillar of the magazine whose 6 years far outdistanced the rest of the 2012 class, who all had one- or two-year stints in the magazine.

But I sure loved Michelle Vawer.

If I’d been voting, I would have picked this elfin beauty (and brought her back for many more issues).

• • •

2013: Who won?
Kate Bock.

Who should have won?
Emily DiDonato.

I love Queen Kate II, and I’m glad to keep having her back, but Emily had a rare appeal to me. Her eyes alone put her in the SI pantheon.

In the third and fourth years, I’m starting to diverge from SI’s official choices…

Topless Tuesday: Bo Krsmanovic (and Emily DiDonato), 2016

So yeah, you can pretty much see Bo's nipple in this shot. A full year before I noticed Bianca's.

• • •

UPDATE 9/8/19: Emily DiDonato. Same year. Same angle. Same result. Eat your heart out, Bianca!

Calendar Girls, Revisited: 1991 Part 1

Kathy Ireland was busy in 1991. She welcomed no fewer than three future SI swimsuit models into the world.

First off was Samantha Hoopes on February 10.

Then came Emily Didonato two weeks later, on February 24.

Michaela was the calendar girl as Emrata arrived.

And then Maria von Hartz celebrated the arrival of 2019 rookie Jasmine Sanders.

There are too many girls for all their names to fit in the "Labels" section, which is a dumb reason to split 1991 into two posts unless you're some kind of obsessive who wants to make sure each model is listed and searchable, so here we are.

Hip to Be Bare

Thought I might add another themed day to the lineup.

One move that a model often pulls that I find pretty erotic is when she unties her string bikini bottom and reveals her hip. She shows you her full side, nude and uninterrupted, from her chest all the way down to her toes.

There’s a nice bit of tantalization going on. As I’ve mentioned before, topless shots are pretty normal, expected even. But there’s just a handful of bottomless shots, and the sexual tension cranks up when the bikini-bottomed area of a model’s body is teased at.

It’s time to celebrate this pose. Topless Tuesday, One-Piece Wednesday, and Thumb-Hook Thursday will hereby be followed by: Free-Hip Friday.

Emily, it is an honor to have you introduce this august tradition.

Scanti-Lui Clad

So France recently had a better election than we did.

I think they also have a better girlie magazine of record.

Lui was founded to be France’s answer to Playboy. They’ve attracted a bevy of A-listers to disrobe, including quite a few girls who had been in SI or soon would be.

The earliest SI girl I could find was my very own Stacey Williams. Her December 1990 issue came out over a year before her Sports Illustrated debut.

No nudity, but some beautiful black and white pics of her getting tattoos on some of my favorite parts of her.

I have a feeling these are fake tattoos, because I don’t think I ever saw one in her subsequent SI photos. However, if you like butt tattoos…

• • •

…the first Lui issue after a long hiatus (September 2013) brought us Isabeli Fontana with a papillon on her derriere.

Longtime readers may recognize some of these June 2014 shots from when I confused Isabeli with Izabel a couple years ago. But for completist’s sake, they are worth revisiting here.

Refresher: This is Isabeli Fontana.

This is Izabel Goulart.

Isabeli and Lui must have quite a crush on each other, as she also makes appearances in July of 2014:

…December/January of 2015-2016:

…and September of 2016:

• • •

The July/August 2014 issue was a cornucopia of my favorite recent swimsuit issue girls. It brought us Emily DiDonato:

…Sara Sampaio:

…and Lais Ribeiro:

Lais also shows up in September 2016:

• • •

Laetitia Casta does what she does best in December/January of 2014/2015: represent France and look hot doing it.