Wednesday's Wide World of Weird

Rebecca Shore | Nov 26, 2013

Welcome to our new Wednesday feature SwimDaily's Wide World of Weird in which we poke around the bizarre corners of the internet, as well as the dankest corners of SI's own archives, to find the funny, odd and downright disturbing ways the Swimsuit name and/or personnel have been invoked. 

This week: The Swimsuit covers that weren't

Maybe it's not weird, per se, but Wednesday's Wide World of Interesting didn't sound as good. Before the first Swimsuit Issue came out in 1964, there were a handful of issues that, had they featured a swimsuit spread, could have been considered the very first.

Then we extrapolated. Here is your comprehensive list  of all of SI's "Swimsuit" covers that weren't, featuring a new, equal-opportunity flavor (read: ladies AND gents).

Setting the precedent early on, SI put a swimsuit on its third-ever cover :: Richard Meek/SI

Coles Phinizy/SI

Sure it was the 1960s, but we promise she's dressed under there :: Art Kane/SI

Illustration by Roy McKie/SI

Lynn Pelham/SI

Walter Iooss Jr./SI

The closest we ever came to a Snowsuit Issue :: Ernst Haas/SI

Toni Frissell/SI

James Drake/SI

Now that, THAT, is a swimsuit :: Neil Leifer/SI

Peter Read Miller/SI

That this wasn't an official Swimsuit cover is a damn shame :: Robert Beck/SI

Arguable for sure, but she's holding a pillow, not a racket so there is clearly something at play that isn't her tennis career :: Walter Iooss Jr./SI

John G. Zimmerman/SI

Fred Lyon/SI

Gentemen, meet Betty Di Bugnano :: Philip O. Stearns/SI

Zale Parry, the name of someone who definitely should have been more famous :: Bob Landry/SI

It's not NOT a swimsuit . . . :: Richard Meek/SI

Jerry Cooke/SI

George Leavens/SI

Fred Lyon/SI

John G. Zimmerman/SI

Louise Dahl/SI

John G. Zimmerman/SI

Top right corner . . . I see you, tiny swimsuits :: Jerry Cooke/SI

Well, hello Mr. Jastremski :: Mark Kauffman/SI

John G. Zimmerman (he of the first official Swimsuit cover photo) /SI

Walter Iooss Jr./SI

************

MORE COVERS: The ones that made the cut