Since 1997, the swimsuit issue has been a stand-alone edition, separate from the regular weekly magazine. In 1997, Tyra Banks was the first black woman on the cover. The issue that got the most letters was the 1978 edition. In the 1950s, a few women appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but the 1964 issue is considered to be the beginning of the current format known as the Swimsuit Issue. Campbell soon became a powerful figure in modeling and molded the issue into a media phenomenon by featuring 'bigger and healthier' California women and printing the names of the models with their photos, beginning a new supermodel era. The first issue, released in 1964, entailed a cover featuring Babette March and a five-page layout.

He asked fashion reporter Jule Campbell to go on a shoot to fill space, including the cover, with a beautiful model. The swimsuit issue was invented by Sports Illustrated editor Andre Laguerre to fill the winter months, a typically slow point in the sporting calendar. Since 1964, the issue had been published every February, but starting in 2019, the issue was made available in May. First published in 1964, it is credited with making the bikini, invented in 1946, a legitimate piece of apparel. The issue carries advertising that, in 2005, amounted to US$35 million in value. The highly coveted cover photograph has been considered as the arbiter of supermodel succession. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is published annually by American magazine Sports Illustrated and features female fashion models, celebrities and athletes wearing swimwear in various locales around the world.

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