The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is a big one.
The annual mag celebrates some of the world’s sexiest and most influential women looking dang delightful in bikinis.
Chrissy Teigan has graced the mag with her presence about a gazillion times. Kate Upton is a regular. Serena Williams and Genie Bouchard have both put down their racquets and thrown on their togs for the publication.
Every year, the mag has an open casting call looking for new talent, whom they call Rookies. Copping Rookie status is a huge achievement; it’s basically a one way ticket to a killer career in the bikini modelling industry.
Over the past few days, SI have been drip feeding us thirsty beings the 2018′s Rookies.
Today, they announced that two of them are Aussie body positive models and best friends, Kate Wasley and Georgia Gibbs:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaZELrpFrfR/?taken-by=si_swimsuit
Yes, ‘Straya!
“We are beyond excited to be apart of the SI family,” Wasley said in a statement.
“To be a part of something so iconic that is so inclusive of race, size and shape is truly a dream come true.”
You might recognise Gibbs (22) and Wasley (23), as they’ve gained a fair bit of fame Down Under for running their body-positive blog Any Body Co.
They created their blog and Insta as a response to online critics who shamed both models for their body shapes, calling Kate “overweight” and Georgia “anorexic”.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaDyK5WFVkf/?taken-by=any.body_co
“We aim for women and men to erase their beauty standards and quit the comparisons,” they write on their website.
“We aim to one day walk down the same catwalk together not in separate shows, encourage more brands to embrace health in all sizes and to empower women to love their skin.”
And that’s just what Sports Illustrated have done, and it’s a welcome breath of fresh air. You can watch the duo’s delightfully tropical shoot in Aruba in this live Facebook vid:
The entire Rookie Class of 2018 is yet to be announced, but so far we know some of the gals who are getting involved, including:
Sailor Brinkley Cook (Christie Brinkley‘s daughter, and the first ever second-gen SI model):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaRbVFxF9Ma/
24-year-old model Raven Lyn:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaWbwi4lubk/?taken-by=si_swimsuit
20-year-old Bahamian model Chase Carter, who was actually first scouted as a 13-year-old at Sydney Airport:
22-year-old Brazilian model Anne De Paula:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaW0hIijWL8/?hl=en&taken-by=annedepaula_
20-year-old Robin Holzken, who has worked with Guess and Victoria’s Secret:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYtdmeoANQr/?hl=en&taken-by=robinmarjolein
And Alexis Ren, the 20-year-old Instagrammer with a whopping 11 million followers:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaRlOX5jafs/?taken-by=alexisren
The issue will be hitting stands in about four months. Not like we’re counting or anything.
