Women's bikini swimsuits - dare to bare in micro swimwear?

Bikinis

Although the thought of bikini swimsuits conjures up images of buff, bronzed California girls, it was the French, those custodians of chic, who came up with the world’s most celebrated swimsuit.

In the 1940s, the joie de vivre throughout the globe after the Second World War resulted in glamour girls, the foxiest of pin ups, and a little invention by a Frenchman called Louis Reard.

Reard is credited with inventing the bikini in 1946. Or perhaps reinventing, as sketches of two-piece bikini-style suits have been found in ancient murals and paintings as early as 1400 B.C. But Reard also had some more contemporary influences. Four or five months before the release of Reard’s suit Jacques Heim, a couturier from Cannes, had designed a micro bathing suit he named the ‘Atome’.

Not to be usurped, Reard set out to design a swimsuit even smaller than Heim’s, which Heim had planned to market as the smallest swimwear in the world.

Four days before Reard was due to show his creation in Paris, the United States military detonated a nuclear weapon near the Bikini Atoll, a chain of small islands in the central Pacific. Not one to miss a publicity opportunity, Reard dubbed his swimsuit the ‘ bikini’.

The bikini was unveiled at the Piscine Molitor in Paris on July 5, 1946, but the launch was not without problems for Reard. No self-respecting Parisian model would don the skimpy bikini, so Reard resorted to hiring a nude dancer to display his creation.

The bikini soared in popularity in France, where women embraced the revolutionary swimsuit along the Riviera. Neighbouring Catholic countries did not take to it so well, and the bikini was banned from the beaches of Spain, Portugal and Italy. Americans didn’t really take to it either, and in the 1950s the bikini was thought of as the risqué domain of strippers and movie stars.

All this began to change with Brigitte Bardot frolicking on the French Riviera in a gingham bikini in her first movie, 1956’s And God Created Woman. Slightly less sensual – but no less influential – was the release of the song Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini in 1960.

It all snowballed from there. Ursula Andress emerged from the sea to drive James Bond ga-ga - clad in a belted bikini, hunting knife at her hip - in Dr No. Raquel Welch donned a fur bikini as a prehistoric cave girl in 1966’s One Million Years B.C. Playboy even commissioned a bikini packed with 21 images of its classic Playboy covers.

Since then, the bikini has risen to iconic status in the world of fashion. A little bit of material and a few bits of string has been twisted, tweaked, bent, stretched and squeezed into all sorts of shapes – some stunning, some eye-poppingly attention grabbing.

© The Pink Fridge Online Magazine 2008 - Bikini Swimsuits

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