Happy 41st birthday to the magnificent Tyra Banks; this Throwback Thursday's for you
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
WHAT'S REALLY left to say about Tyra Banks that we haven't already said a thousand times I mean, one day it's 1995 and 22-year-old Tyra is frollicking on a South African beach with Valeria Mazza,and the next she's the fiercest woman in the biz as CEO of the aptly-named Bankable Productions (and forever expanding the reach of her golden touch, most recently with a line of cosmetics). In September 2015 her new show The Fab will premiere, for which she's nabbed one very recognizable face as her co-host.
But before all that, there was Tyra the SI Swimsuit cover model. Last year on her birthday I wrote about that timeless 1997 cover shot almost didn't happen. Imagine that: an entire nation's worth of locker doors never knowing the joy of a glistening Tyra Banks and those red and pink polka dots. In the end, though, the Swimsuit gods smiled down on us, and by us I mean the Swimsuit team because we got our cover; but I also mean the world at large. Because you all got this:
Russell James/SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Russell James/SI
Russell James/SI
Robert Erdmann/SI
Robert Erdmann/SI
Robert Erdmann/SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
VIDEO: Tyra in Turkey (the shoot that never went to print)