Sports Illustrated models baffled by swimwear

Brooklyn Decker is the latest in a series of "oopsie!" cover girls who just can't master their itty-bitty bikinis

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Senior Writer

Published February 9, 2010 8:10PM (EST)

  (AP)
(AP)

As the annual swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated lands on newsstands and toilet tanks worldwide, I could make the oft-repeated observation that the magazine always manages to pack more hot models between these pages than it does female athletes the rest of the year. And I would not be the first to point out that when the magazine does deign to honor an actual female sports star, they don't exactly go out of their way to put her in the most empowering position

But really, I don't expect anything from the swimsuit issue beyond beautiful women in swimsuits. I just wish those poor girls could master the complexities of those itty-bitty bikinis -- over the past few years, they seem to have lost the ability to figure out how to wear them. Whereas once the models merely had to ooze hotness, now the SI girls are practically required to pull the old "Oh noes! My bating soot is fawing owf!" routine. 

Take, for example, this year's newly crowned cover queen -- 22-year-old Brooklyn Decker, wife of Andy Roddick. (Want to get in SI, ladies? Marry an athlete! Sorry, I said I wasn't going to grump.) Standing in the water like a nymph for the cover of the March issue, Decker crosses her arms over her breasts, her yellow bikini top draped over her, uh ... shoulder?

But she's not the only SI cover model wardrobe malfunctioning out there. Behold a brief slide-show history of the modern SI oopsie.

View the slide show


By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a senior writer for Salon and author of "A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles." Follow her on Bluesky @maryelizabethw.

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