She’s making bikini history.
Meet Tara Lynn. At 36, she’s the oldest rookie to pose for Sports Illustrated’s storied swimsuit issue.
“I’m the eldest, as I like to say,” Lynn tells The Post. “I think that sweetens the deal, and I think that is one of the most delicious parts to me.”
The IMG “curve model” and mother of two who lives in Montclair, NJ, was picking up her sons from school when her agent called to give her the news that she’d been chosen for the bikini bible.
“That’s a mind-blowing piece of news to get. I started laughing hysterically for a couple of minutes. It was pure joy,” says the brunette.
“So many of us have these grand goals when we are kids, and as time goes on, we seem to think our opportunities are narrowed down. We can get trapped in the idea that the older we get, the more opportunities are behind us.”
The full-lipped beauty shot the magazine in November — just a year after giving birth to her younger son.
“I wasn’t concerned about getting rid of the baby belly,” she says. Instead, she focused on building strength: “I worked with a trainer to gain muscle. My focus was on fitness.”
Lynn — who has posed for H&M, the pages of CR Fashion Book and Elle France — has had an unconventional journey to modeling.
The Washington state native was signed by a Seattle modeling agency at the relatively late age of 25.
At the time, Lynn, who studied voice and music theory, was trying to work up the nerve to become a jingle singer. She figured she needed to toughen up for her future in the performance world, so she tried something she was sure she’d be rebuffed from: a modeling gig.
“[I wanted] to do something really scary that I would probably get told no and discover that I could be okay,” she says. “I was looking for rejection, so I could pick myself up and keep going toward this other thing I wanted to do.”
Instead, she “was discovered by accident” when she walked into the office. After seeing how much she could earn as a model, she put singing on the back burner and moved to New York. Seven years ago, she became the first plus-size model signed by IMG.
Perhaps those early experiences inspired her to think outside the box for her SI shoot on Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where she turned her bikini look into a charity venture.
“As soon as I knew I was shooting with them, a light bulb went off,” she says. “We all know these swimsuits that go into the issue sell really well. And why would I not design something of my own? Especially if I could have full control of the profits.”
After she got the go-ahead from the SI bosses, she designed a green string bikini ($100) that “should be beautiful on every skin tone and remind us of trees.” (As it should: For every suit sold, 100 trees will be planted in collaboration with Trees for the Future, an organization that helps create sustainable forest gardens for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.)
Lynn is hoping to launch more swimwear in the future. But for now, she’s enjoying her induction into the swim hall of fame.
“There’s something really special about [posing for SI]. It feels like a lottery ticket. And I won it.”