This is the chronological history of

cover model A cover model is a male or female whose photograph appears on the front cover of a magazine. The cover model is generally a fashion model, celebrity, or contest winner. Generally, cover models are depicted solitarily; however, on occasion magazines ...

s for the ''

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 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 cov ...

''. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has grown from being an issue of ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' magazine created to fill space at a time of year with little sports news into a major marketing franchise that includes a special separate issue, a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

specials,

calendars A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

books A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ar ...

and enormous amounts of advertising. It began as a short photo spread of women in

bathing suit A swimsuit is an item of clothing designed to be worn by people engaging in a water-based activity or water sports, such as swimming, diving and surfing, or sun-orientated activities, such as sun bathing. Different types may be worn by men, wo ...

s and has become a

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

issue for beachwear worn by the world's top

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the Plan_(drawing), plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a mea ...

s. Being the subject of the ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine cover is a well chronicled event which has both become a measure by which fame is measured and a status which is supposedly accompanied by a curse known as the "SI jinx". There seems to have been no reports of any association of the SI jinx with the swimsuit issue. There is a lot of public interest in who is on the cover of fashion magazines with websites dedicated to the subject. For

supermodel A supermodel, also spelled super-model or super model, is a highly paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in ''haute couture'' and commercial modeling. The term ''supermodel'' became prominent in the po ...

s being on the cover of important magazines is a matter of prestige and achieving the cover of ''Sports Illustrated's'' annual

swimsuit A swimsuit is an item of clothing designed to be worn by people engaging in a water-based activity or List of water sports, water sports, such as swimming, Diving (sport), diving and surfing, or sun-orientated activities, such as sun bathing. Di ...

edition is quite a celebrated highlight. It is especially noteworthy if a cover model has a solo cover appearance. The unveiling of the swimsuit issue cover and its model is a

media event A media event, also known as a pseudo-event, is an event, activity, or experience conducted for the purpose of media publicity. It may also include any event that is covered in the mass media or was hosted largely with the media in mind. In media ...

, widely reported in the press. For some, the image of these models on the cover of a sports magazine is a moral issue. The issue generates numerous letters from readers both in support and in opposition of the issue each year. Numerous subscribers cancel

subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...

s as a matter of propriety annually. Recently, Time Warner took action to avoid many of the complainants by withholding the Swimsuit issue from certain types of recipients, such as libraries and schools. Numerous types of trivia and statistics are monitored regarding the swimsuit issue cover subjects. Several have gone on to subsequent success in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

.Sports Illustrated 50: The Anniversary Book, Rob Fleder, 2005, p.286, Others have become the spouses of notable celebrities. The following list is a list of

s chosen as subjects for the ''Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue''

cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

, incorporating some related statistics and trivia.

List of covers

Models on multiple covers

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover models Cover models Lists of female models Lists of people by magazine appearance