The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is published annually by American magazine Sports Illustrated and features female fashion models, celebrities and athletes wearing swimwear in various locales around the world. The highly coveted cover photograph has been considered as the arbiter of supermodel succession. The issue carries advertising that, in 2005, amounted to US$35 million in value. First published in 1964, it is credited with making the bikini, invented in 1946, a legitimate piece of apparel.
Yamila Díaz-Rahi, also Yamila Diaz, is an Argentine model. She has appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue a total of 11 times, and made the cover of the magazine first in 2002 and again in 2006. She also featured in the 50th anniversary SI edition in 2014 titled "The Legends".
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search was a reality television show produced by NBC that debuted in January 2005, prior to the launch of that year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in February.
Francesca "Frankie" Rayder is an American model. She has a portfolio of covergirl appearances for high fashion magazines and was once a VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards for Model of the Year nominee. She has performed in runway shows, including the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show four times and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue twice. She has also been featured in print ad campaigns. At the peak of her fame, she was an it girl according to The New York Times and GQ once named her the Sexiest Woman in the World.
A handbra is the practice of covering female nipples and areolae with hands or arms. It often is done in compliance with censors' guidelines, public authorities and community standards when female breasts are required to be covered in film or other media. If the arms are used instead of the hands the expression is arm bra. The use of long hair for this purpose is called a hair bra.
Brooklyn Danielle Decker is an American model and actress, perhaps best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, including the cover of the 2010 issue. In addition to working for Victoria's Secret for the 2010 "Swim" collection, she has ventured into television with guest appearances on Chuck, Ugly Betty, The League, and Royal Pains. She made her feature film debut in Just Go with It (2011), and later starred in Battleship (2012) and What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012). In 2015, she was cast as a series regular, portraying Mallory Hanson, on Netflix's Grace and Frankie.
Victoria Syde Praver is an American model and swimwear fashion designer perhaps best known for her appearances in the 2007–2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, as a Global Brand Ambassador for Billabong in 2009, and for being the youngest face of Guess in 2006, at the age of 17.
Hannah Jeter is an American model and television host best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, including the cover of the 2015 edition.
Babette March, pronounced Marx, born Barbara Marchlowitz, formerly Babette Russell, or simply Babette, who is now known by the name Babette Beatty, was the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model. She was on the swimsuit issue cover of the January 20, 1964, issue.
Quiana Grant is an American model who appeared in the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She was featured in a bodypainting layout as a canvas for bodypaint artist Joanne Gair who is in her tenth year of producing bodypaint art for the Swimsuit Issue. She was part of a record-setting class of seven rookie Swimsuit Issue models along with Jessica Gomes, Melissa Haro, Yasmin Brunet, Melissa Baker, Jeisa Chiminazzo and Jarah Mariano.
Melissa Rose Haro is an American model who appeared in the 2008 and 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Her 2008 photo shoot was set in the Cayman Islands during the Pirate Week festival and included many photos in keeping with its motif. Her 2009 photo shoot was set in Riviera Maya.
Joanne Gair, nicknamed Kiwi Jo, is a New Zealand-born and -raised make-up artist and body painter whose body paintings have been featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue from 1999 to 2017. She is considered the world's leading trompe-l'œil body painter and make-up artist, and she became famous with a Vanity FairDemi's Birthday Suit cover of Demi Moore in a body painting in 1992. Her Disappearing Model was featured on the highest-rated episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not. She is the daughter of George Gair.
Raphael Mazzucco, or Rafael Mazzucco, is a Canadian fashion, art and music photographer. His photographs have appeared on the cover of three Sports IllustratedSwimsuit Issues in a four-year span, including the 2006, 2008 and 2009 main cover images, as well as the books: Sports Illustrated: Exposure and A Second Decade of Guess Images: 1991-2001. He was also commissioned to shoot Victoria's Secret's coffee table book.
Genevieve Morton is a South African model. Morton was voted the Sexiest Woman in the World in 2012 by FHM and was named one of the Top 50 Swimsuit Models of All Time by Sports Illustrated in 2014.
Katherine Elizabeth Upton is an American model. She first appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2011, and was the cover model for the 2012, 2013 and 2017 issues. In addition, she was the subject of the 100th-anniversary Vanity Fair cover.
Kate Lynne Bock is a Canadian model known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue since 2013. In 2020, she appeared on the cover, alongside Olivia Culpo and Jasmine Sanders.
Mia Kang is a fashion model, Muay Thai fighter, body confidence advocate, and television host based in New York City. Kang grew up in Hong Kong and was bullied as a young girl for being overweight. She halved her weight at the age of 13 and was soon scouted as a model. Kang modeled across Asia and Europe through her high school and college years. She got a master's degree in finance and financial law in England, and left modeling to work as a commodities trader, before returning to modeling in New York City and winning the 2016 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model search and being named a 2017 Rookie.
Camille Veronica Kostek is an American model, television host, and actress. She gained recognition for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and achieved further prominence after landing a cover of the magazine's 2019 edition.
Yumi Nootenboom, better known as Yumi Nu, is an American model and singer-songwriter. She appeared on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2022, becoming the first plus-size model of Asian descent to do so.
