@SI_Swimsuit posted a link to a Gillette "Rookie to Cover" site from a year or two ago, where you can follow the journeys of Brooklyn Decker, Marisa Miller, Petra Nemcova, Veronica Varekova, and Rebecca Romijn from their first appearances in the magazine to their covers some years later.
One of the 2002 shots of Veronica shows her in her Dos Equis bottlecap bikini.
Now wait a second. When this pic was published, it looked like this:They edited out her bikini bottom.
I have spent nine years filled with sympathy for how painful that suit must have been to wear. And it was just more bikini bottom trickery from SI.