I’ve often referred to this as the greatest photo ever taken.
Photo: Robert Huntzinger
It’s got everything. Two SI stars in their prime. Magnificent candy-colored bikinis in platonic-ideal cuts. A front view alongside a back view.
Readers opened the February 12, 1990 issue to pages 126-127 to see these ladies, bled to the edges of what should have been but inexplicably wasn’t the centerfold.
Although I have stated that an overabundance of nearly-identical poses in the same suit is a shortcoming of the modern swimsuit issue, making it harder to pinpoint single, iconic shots, I do have to praise some variants of this shot that are floating around the internet.
The subtle differences in poses — arms, heads, legs — give you a little
taste of what the shoot would have been like, almost creating a
flip-book in your mind: Watch Elle and Kathy luxuriating side by side,
gently writhing their semi-submerged bodies. My head swims to think
about it.
The caption describes them as keeping cool in the “Cotton House pool” on the private island of Mustique.
There
are a couple of pools on the Cotton House resort grounds, each of which
features a curve along the edge. But based on the tiling, I think this
must be the pool at “The Residence,” a private suite with rates I’m not
even going to bother looking up, so it’s one swimsuit mecca I will never
visit except through these photos.
It’s downright barbaric how small and low-res the online pics were in 1999. SI needs to remaster these old photos.
Photo: Dominique Issermann
This photo of Yamila appeared in the margins of the introduction to the ’99 issue. You might see it as a “genie in a bottle” image, which is what the magazine’s caption writer went with: “There’s no getting this bikini back in the bottle.”
But to me it seems more like she’s spilling out of the jar. Like, in this world, beautiful women come in giant clay jars, and I’ve just opened this one, and I’ve poured Yamila out on the beach, and she’s lounging, sun-kissed, on the sand, smiling expectantly at me, ready for whatever I might have in mind.
I suppose those two “What is it you wish?” scenarios aren’t that different.
“Objectification” is a charged word in this realm. It’s a word that’s hurled at the swimsuit issue, and similar sexy-lady endeavors, as an accusation of sexism. And I don’t think that’s entirely unfair. These are flesh-and-blood human beings, not toys or decorations.
The way I rationalized it way back in my adolescence was: The woman is not an object, but the photograph is.
For better or worse, the image triggers a false sense of connection with the woman. We’re looking at her, but she’s looking at a camera lens.
And for that matter, we’re not really looking at her, but at a flat surface simulating her via a series of photons reflected off of —
Anyway.
But even the feminist author of this highly critical book about the swimsuit issue states that objectification isn’t inherently bad, in the right conditions. I’d say there’s a playful, consensual objectification that happens in relationships and flirting. Imagine the rush of having a woman smile at you and say, “So what do you wanna do to me?”
And I think that’s what’s at play in swimsuit photography. It doesn’t seem cruel or dehumanizing to me. Just some sexy women enjoying being sexy for an audience they know is appreciative. They’re presenting themselves to us, of their own volition, fully aware of where our eyes will wander.
And maybe it’s just my perverted mind at work, but Yamila’s pose up there seems to tap into the playful objectification angle a little extra. It joins the ranks of photos like Rebecca on a banquet table. Kathy in a cage.* Paulina in a (literal) fishnet.
This is tangentially related, maybe, but this video comes to mind of Sara Sampaio and Gigi Hadid, as rookies, quizzing people — male and female — at some resort. Two of their questions, “Which butt is whose?” and “Who’s hotter, blondes or brunettes?” are certainly cases of the models objectifying themselves.
(Are you a butt man?” Sara asks a gentleman early in the video.)
They compete for attention, stumping for votes in the Battle of the Hair Colors.
Gigi, upon hearing a woman declare that brunettes are hotter: “I need all boys to please report to here!”
Sara, on her knees, after a man says he prefers blondes: “Why? We’re hotter!”
I don’t think you’d see this video made now, a mere six years later. It’s a little too on-the-nose for SI’s current brand, in which they try to blend the blatant T&A into more of a general “Celebration of Beauty!” attitude.
Anyway. Yamila’s super hot. This is a great photo of her.
*I don’t think this "caged Kathy" photo was ever in the magazine, but I found it on Robert Huntzinger’s site surrounded by other SI pics.
I’m beginning to think I’ve been wrong about Kathy Ireland.
Photo: Brian Lanker
I’ve spent a lot of time feeling like she was overrated. Gorgeous, obviously, but in an era that included Elle and Paulina, I didn’t see why Kathy was the one who got marriage proposals from entire fraternities in the Letters section of Sports Illustrated.
I don’t know if it’s maturity or nostalgia or what, but I’m coming around. She had some magnificent photos in her long career with the magazine.
This was the honest-to-goodness centerfold of my first-ever swimsuit issue. In my youth, that word, centerfold, was bandied about as some kind of sacred term, something to do with naked ladies but I wasn’t sure what.
But then this magazine arrived at my house, thanks to my dad’s subscription, and I finally understood it. One horizontal photo, two uninterrupted pages. With some careful staple-manipulation, she could be removed in a single sheet and affixed to your bedroom wall with nothing but a few tiny holes marring her.
The caption compares her to the Sphinx, and it fits. Not just the pose itself, with her forearms resting on the sand below, but also the inscrutable and hypnotic eyes meeting your gaze.
One notable difference from the Sphinx: Kathy tilts her pelvis up a little to reveal a glorious corduroy string bikini bottom, a gesture that would have made my eleven-year-old head swim.
This photo is the best version of this pic floating around online. It’s not scanned from the magazine, but from one of the “collections” SI has put out, so she doesn’t have the crease through her right shoulder.
It’s worth noting that a variant of this shot appeared in the subsequent 1986 calendar, and it’s just as wonderful.
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…
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.
Stephanie has already been featured on this blog as a wall-mounted bust, so she’s established herself as an artist’s muse.
I recently happened across the website of an artist by the name of Paco Leal, who is occasionally inspired by our SI girls. He chose this worthy shot of Stephanie:
… to create this piece, which, sadly, has already been sold.
Fortunately, if you have $6,000 lying around, you can still pick up this painting of the greatest photograph ever taken.
Anyway, he’s described as working in oil on canvas, but these are a little too perfect as reproductions, so I suspect there’s some tracing and/or computering involved in his methods.
Here’s another photorealistic reproduction of a Stephanie pic (possibly the most glorious photo ever taken of her) by a pinup artist named Gennadiy Koufay.
It’s pretty insane that such an exquisite woman never got an SI cover.
Halima Aden, a hijab-wearing Muslim model, will be in this year’s issue, sporting a burkini.
There is a LOT going on here, issues of race and culture and religion and feminism and sexuality intersecting in a move that’s bold and maybe a little bewildering.
She’s adorable (her interviews are filled with very infectious smiles and screams). But I admit, I’m still getting my head around this…
Like, it’s no secret that the swimsuit issue is eye candy. But is it improper to let my eyes wander up and down Halima’s (almost entirely covered) body?
My very limited understanding of the hijab and the burkini is that they’re based on religion-inspired modesty. This seems to be at odds with the very idea of the swimsuit issue, where even the feminist activism involves naked ladies.
(Fun little irony: Just as you’re thinking about how skittish Islamic culture is about the female body, this Good Morning America story censors the cleavage on old swimsuit covers.)
But if this is a further celebration of diversity, I’m all about it. I like declarations that religion and feminism and liberalism are compatible with fun and sexiness. And I’m positive I will still have my Barbara Palvin bikini pics on the very next page.
Stacey Williams ushered in a couple wonderful models in 1995. Unfortunately, I fear they are both destined to be one-hit wonders.
On January 9, Stacey oversaw the arrival of Raven Lyn. Raven was one of the 2018 models I was most excited about, but there's been no word of her participating in the 2019 shoots thus far.
Hailey Clauson, however, has been accounted for in 2019.
And on March 7, 1995, her birth was celebrated by an underrated one-hit wonder in her own right, Jenny Brunt.
Another one-and-done girl, Solveig, arrived on April 13, heralded by her fellow one-name wonder Vendela.
Stacey's second one-hit wonder of the year is the deeply mourned Kelly Gale, on May 14.
On June 4, Ingrid Seynhaeve welcomed Georgia Gibbs. No sign of Georgia making a return appearance this year.
And finally, we have a week where neither the birthday girl nor the calendar girl is a one-hit wonder. Gigi Hadid (2014, 15, 16) and Kathy Ireland (1984, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, deep breath 96).
