Handicapping the 2011 Cover Girl Candidates, Part Two

2009: Raising the Bar
I heard an interesting rumor that Bar Refaeli was supposed to be on the 2008 cover, but she bragged about it too soon, before it was to be made public. So to send her a message, SI bumped her and used Marisa Miller instead.

If true, this would have blown my 2008 prediction away. Plus, it would have robbed the world of ever seeing Marisa on the cover.

I have no idea if it’s true. But by the time 2009 was rolling along, I figured Bar was an excellent candidate. She’d graced the pages with her otherworldly beauty for two years, in ’07 and ’08.


Look at her. Fresh face, turned-up nose, a sprinkling of freckles, but sardonic eyes and perpetually parted lips. She looks like the girl you couldn’t bring yourself to talk to in college.

Those two promising issues, plus the fact that she was gaining notoriety as Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend, so name recognition was growing.

When the cover arrived, it was a disappointment. There’s something accidental about it, not in an alluring or candid way, but in a way that suggests she was between poses. It’s as if he hadn’t decided whether she wanted to level her gaze at the camera or look away demurely, whether to pull her legs femininely together or stand with them defiantly apart.

Is she flirtatiously threatening to remove her bikini bottom, or just adjusting it, unaware that the camera’s going to click?

I feel like I’m being a little harsh. But I think Bar Refaeli is capable of looking exquisite, and I would have expected a cover shot of hers to take its place in the pantheon of great covers. Were there other 2009 shots of Bar that might have been more alluring for the cover? I thought you’d never ask.

Much better body shot of the same suit, but a lot is lost in the face. It almost doesn’t look like her.


This one is very cute and sunny, and a characteristic Bar face. And it would have been one of the few truly butt-centric cover shots in swimsuit issue history. But the top looks like she was attacked with silly string during a child’s birthday party, and is probably too risqué.


Awesome body shot. But the face is a little zombie-fied. And the indoor setting doesn’t look like an SI cover.


Gracious. Yes. This should have been the cover. (Though the dogtag-like necklace is a little ironic. ) I may need to go restart my heart.