Haley Kalil on How Swim Search ‘Opened Every Door’ for Her Career

With no prior modeling experience, the Minnesota native was declared co-winner of the 2018 Swim Search.

Haley Kalil was photographed by Yu Tsai in Kenya / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

The Swim Search is officially back, and applications for the 2025 round open on Friday, Dec. 13. With the excitement just around the corner, we figured now would be a great time to look back on past Swim Searches and the women who have made the open casting call experience so special.

The brand’s first Swim Search took place back in 2017, when aspiring and established models were invited to submit themselves for consideration in the following year’s magazine. In ’18, Camille Kostek and Haley Kalil were declared co-winners of the magazine’s inaugural Swim Search.

Kalil went on to pose for the brand on a total of four different occasions, while Kostek has starred in each issue since and was named an SI Swimsuit legend earlier this year.

“Sports Illustrated Swimsuit has truly, I mean truly, changed my life,” Kalil has said of her Swim Search experience. “I went from being somebody that had no modeling experience, I had never had a modeling agency, I was turned down by every modeling agency I ever contacted ... And so Sports Illustrated Swimsuit has truly opened up so many doors for me. It’s all about embracing beauty in every different shape, size, color, and it’s that diversity that makes Sports Illustrated Swimsuit so beautiful.”

Following her initial brand photo shoot in Belize in 2018, Kalil returned to the fold each of the following three years, traveling to Kenya, Scrub Island, British Virgin Islands, and Hollywood, Fla.

The 32-year-old Minnesota native, who has called her SI Swimsuit journey “a wild ride,” is adamant that her participation in the Swim Search “has opened every door” for her career since. “The clients that I’ve checked off my dream list, I can’t even imagine that I’ve worked with them, and it is all thanks to the SI Swim Search,” she stated.

Today, Kalil is a content creator known for her impeccable sense of humor and celebrity red carpet interviews. She she has 6.3 million followers on Instagram and another 10.9 million on TikTok.

“It is truly a community of women that empower each other [and] support each other,” Kalil added of the Swim Search, which she applauds for giving women a platform on which to speak.

Read more about the 2025 Swim Search here, and be sure to stay tuned for our application announcement on Friday, Dec. 13.

Next. Camille Swim Search. SI Swimsuit Legend Camille Kostek Reflects on Life-Changing Swim Search Process. light