Nearly 50 years after her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue debut, Christie Brinkley is practically synonymous with the publication.
But the supermodel — who first appeared in SI Swimsuit in 1975 and was the first to cover three consecutive issues from 1979 to 1981 — tells Page Six Style it was still a “shock” to be featured on the front of this year’s special 60th anniversary edition of the bikini bible so many decades later.
“It’s incredible, it really is. The numbers astonish me,” she says.
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“I can still feel the sun on my skin in the Seychelles [the site of her first cover shoot in 1979]. I can still feel the red earth dust on my cheeks as the sun’s rising in Kenya [for the 1989 issue]. The memories are still so fresh in my mind from my Sports Illustrated trips, these beautiful adventures. I really cherish those memories.”
Especially since, as she puts it, “The last thing in the world I ever felt like was a bathing suit model.”
“Everything about Sports Illustrated, from the very get-go, has been a shocker to me,” she says. “At the very early days of my career when I didn’t know what in the world to do with my hands when I was modeling — I was always so grateful for a pocket! — here I get picked to go do these bathing suit shoots.”
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Brinkley — who just launched her new clothing line, Twrhll, at HSN — trades bikinis for a glittering evening gown on the front of the new issue, posing alongside fellow SI Swimsuit legends like Tyra Banks, Kate Upton and Chrissy Teigen.
And while she’s proud of her “amazing legacy” with the publication, the catwalker says she’s especially excited for the “new, young girls” who are just beginning their journeys with the magazine, like Brittany Mahomes, Jena Sims and Olivia Dunne.
“I’m so happy for all of them. It was great to be around all of that energy,” Brinkley says.
