SI Swimsuit Legend Camille Kostek’s Advice for Swim Search Hopefuls Is Essential

The model co-won the brand’s inaugural casting call in 2018 and has posed for the brand each year since.

Camille Kostek was photographed by Yu Tsai in Hollywood, Fla. / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

In case you missed it, the Swim Search is officially back! Applications for the 2025 open casting call open this Friday, Dec. 13, when experienced and aspiring models are welcome to submit themselves for consideration in the following year’s magazine.

When the Swim Search first began in 2017, Camille Kostek and Haley Kalil were declared co-winners of the 2018 contest. Both women were featured as rookies in the 2019 SI Swimsuit Issue, and Kostek ended up landing the cover following her photo shoot in Kangaroo Island, Australia. The 32-year-old Connecticut native has been featured in each annual SI Swimsuit Issue since, and was named a brand legend this year.

In honor of the return of the Swim Search, we recently chatted with Kostek to get her insights for aspiring brand models. So, listen up, Swim Search hopefuls, and get ready to glean some expertise from the seven-time SI Swimsuit model herself.

A lifelong SI Swimsuit fan, Kostek says she manifested her work with the brand through a cover photo of Kate Upton on a vision board. She knew that she wanted to be a part of the magazine one day, and three years before she ultimately landed her own cover, stood in the rain at a brand launch event in New York City to get her copies of the 2016 SI Swimsuit Issue—with Hailey Clauson and Ashley Graham on the cover—signed.

When the brand’s inaugural Swim Search was announced in 2017, Kostek had just moved to Los Angeles. She was unsigned and was dealing with industry pushback from agents when the open casting call announcement popped up on her Instagram timeline—and Kostek immediately took action by putting together her submission video.

“I never let fear or doubt get in the way,” Kostek says today. “So I think that would be big advice to give to the girls that are going to apply this year and in future years to come is just think about yourself. Be in competition with yourself. Don’t compare yourself to any other submissions. Don’t compare yourself to any past submissions. Be inspired and be motivated by them, but lean into what makes you you and what makes you unique, and forget about the ‘nos,’ forget about all of it and just get excited.”

Kostek believes that “energy is everything,” and encourages Swim Search hopefuls to believe in themselves regardless of what anyone else tells them about their dreams. She urges women to listen to their internal voice, continue to grow and challenge themselves, and understand that taking a chance on themselves could, in fact, be a life-changing opportunity.

Following her open casting call success, Kostek went on to land television show hosting gigs, acting roles and more, career avenues she says she pursued thanks to the confidence her work with SI Swimsuit instilled within her.

“Now being a legend of the brand and a cover model and seven consecutive years [in], that never would’ve happened if I didn’t let go of what anyone else had told me and just leaned into knowing what could come of this and what I could be,” Kostek says.