Long before she had her own television show, Martha Stewart modeled for brands including Chanel and Clairol.

Now, at 81, she’s the oldest model to grace the duvet of Sports Illustrated’s annual Swimsuit Issue. “I don’t take into consideration age very much,” Stewart told the publication. “But I believed that that is sort of historic.”

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Martha Stewart is continuous to make her mark — this time on the duvet of the 2023 SI Swimsuit issue! See her like never before here https://t.co/BcQZcV7R6j

— Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) May 15, 2023

Early Modeling Profession

Stewart began modeling in her teens and had a contract with Ford Models. It was then that she began appearing in television commercials and magazine advertisements. Her clients included Unilever and Tareyton cigarettes.

Within the early ’60s, Stewart put herself through university at Barnard College in Recent York City. Modeling gigs helped her pay her tuition.

“I got enough modeling jobs at $50 an hour — which was a number of money at the moment,” Stewart said in “Makers,” a 2013 PBS documentary.

Stewart even posed for one in all the largest names in fashion: Chanel. She later told André Leon Talley on an episode of “The Martha Stewart Show” that she still owns the Chanel garments she modeled many years earlier.

Constructing a Lifestyle Empire

Modeling gave approach to Stewart’s future profession as a homemaking expert. While working as a model in Europe, Stewart studied Italian, German and French cuisine.

Cooking quickly became one in all Stewart’s biggest passions, and in 1976, she opened a catering company with a friend from her modeling days, Norma Collier. The recipes Stewart honed as a caterer became the premise for her first cookbook, 1982’s “Entertaining.”

Return to Modeling

For many years, Stewart has mastered the DIY domain, launching television shows, home product lines and podcasts.

“Age just isn’t the determining factor when it comes to friendship or when it comes to success, but what people do, how people think, how people act, that’s what’s essential and never your age,” Stewart told Sports Illustrated.

For Stewart’s Sports Illustrated shoot, Stewart traveled to the beaches of the Dominican Republic to model 10 different swimwear looks. She joins Megan Fox, Kim Petras and Brooks Nader as this 12 months’s Swimsuit Issue cover stars.

Sports Illustrated isn’t Stewart’s only modeling gig this 12 months. In March, she launched a group with Skechers and modeled the collaboration in an ad campaign for the sneakers.