Cindy

It was called Skinsuits, the pictorial that ran in Playboy in July 1988. If you were a reader back then, you remember Herb Ritts' photographs of the 22-year-old, Illinois-born supermodel who went on to become a television host, an actress and a savvy businesswoman. Cindy Crawford herself encounters the shots regularly: When she makes personal appearances for Revlon or another client, fans often pull a treasured copy of that issue out of a protective slip-case and ask her to sign it. "Most of the magazine covers I do are out for a month and then they get recycled," she says with a laugh. "But every time I do an autograph signing, those old Playboys show up. That one seems to be a collector's item."

Attention, collectors: Here we go again. Cindy Crawford is back--ten years older, wiser (not that she wasn't plenty sharp the first time around) and just as breathtaking. With Herb Ritts once more behind the camera and the sun-dappled stone walls of Costa Careyes, Mexico providing a new location (sorry, no sand this time), these pictures showcase not a young woman taking the fashion world by storm but an established star at home with herself. "Herb and I both loved the first Playboy shoot, and we had such a great experience that there was no reason not to do it again," she says. "We wanted to say, 'Here's me ten years later.' Physically, things change in ten years. But in some ways I'm in better shape now, and I felt more comfortable doing it this time, maybe because I'm more comfortable in my own skin. Also, I don't often get to do editorial layouts in which we're trying solely to make beautiful pictures. I'm usually selling something."

Some of her advisors, she admits, were taken aback when she announced that she was going to pose for these photos. "That provoked me," she says, "and made me want to push their buttons a little. People have to compartmentalize me. They can't deal with a woman who has a serious career taking off her clothes and being sexy."

Cindy breaks into a dazzling smile, then shrugs. "And to be honest, I don't want to turn into the Redbook girl too young. I still want to do different things, to take chances in my career."

She's taken plenty of chances over the past decade, forging a distinct path ever since she parlayed her clout as a model into a job hosting the fashion show House of Style on MTV. She did that until, she says, "I felt as though I couldn't go any further in that venue." She left MTV for the kind of mainstream TV gig that has humbled many others: She took a turn hosting the late-night talk show Later on NBC, garnering good ratings and attracting offers from other networks. Now she has signed a three-year deal with ABC to host several specials a year. The first, which airs September 22, examines the sexual state of the union. "It's 50 years after the Kinsey Report, but have things changed that much?" she asks. "We think we're so hip and so open about sex, but are we really?"

In one tiny neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin the answer was a resounding yes. There Cindy talked with a lesbian couple, an older couple grappling with the husband's affairs with women he'd met on the Internet, two interracial couples, a young gay man and an older bisexual man who had lost his lover to AIDS. "It was just amazing how open they were," she says. "The whole idea was to break down walls and get people to talk openly about sex. I'd go home from work and tell my husband, 'You won't believe what someone said today.'"

Her husband, to whom she has been married since May, is Rande Gerber, owner of two of the country's hottest clubs--Los Angeles' Sky Bar and New York City's Whiskey. (Her marriage to Richard Gere, and its ensuing tabloid frenzy, ended amicably after three years.) The marriage may also signal a shift in her priorities. "I'm trying to find more balance," she says, "so I'll have more time for life." She's taking piano lessons and vows to stick with them this time. She stays home in Los Angeles often enough that friends and family can actually come to visit. "And in my work, I'm just trying to keep myself interested," she adds. "I get all these opportunities to do new things, and usually I feel I should try them. If I don't like them, I won't do them again."

But if Cindy likes those experiences, will she keep repeating them--say, every ten years or so? "Who knows where I'll be ten years from now, and what I'll look like. But if Herb will still shoot me, I would love to do this again."