Bikini introduced 1946
On July 5, 1946, French designer Louis Reard unveils a daring
two-piece swimsuit at the Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in
Paris. Parisian showgirl Micheline Bernardini modeled the new fashion,
which Reard dubbed “bikini,” inspired by a news-making U.S. atomic test
that took place off the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean earlier that
week.
European women first began wearing two-piece bathing suits that
consisted of a halter top and shorts in the 1930s, but only a sliver of
the midriff was revealed and the navel was vigilantly covered. In the
United States, the modest two-piece made its appearance during World War
II, when wartime rationing of fabric saw the removal of the skirt panel
and other superfluous material. Meanwhile, in Europe, fortified
coastlines and Allied invasions curtailed beach life during the war, and
swimsuit development, like everything else non-military, came to a
standstill.
In 1946, Western Europeans joyously greeted the first war-free summer
in years, and French designers came up with fashions to match the
liberated mood of the people. Two French designers, Jacques Heim and
Louis Reard, developed competing prototypes of the bikini. Heim called
his the “atom” and advertised it as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.”
Reard’s swimsuit, which was basically a bra top and two inverted
triangles of cloth connected by string, was in fact significantly
smaller. Made out of a scant 30 inches of fabric, Reard promoted his
creation as “smaller than the world’s smallest bathing suit.” Reard
called his creation the bikini, named after the Bikini Atoll.
In planning the debut of his new swimsuit, Reard had trouble finding a
professional model who would deign to wear the scandalously skimpy
two-piece. So he turned to Micheline Bernardini, an exotic dancer at the
Casino de Paris, who had no qualms about appearing nearly nude in
public. As an allusion to the headlines that he knew his swimsuit would
generate, he printed newspaper type across the suit that Bernardini
modeled on July 5 at the Piscine Molitor. The bikini was a hit,
especially among men, and Bernardini received some 50,000 fan letters.
Before long, bold young women in bikinis were causing a sensation
along the Mediterranean coast. Spain and Italy passed measures
prohibiting bikinis on public beaches but later capitulated to the
changing times when the swimsuit grew into a mainstay of European
beaches in the 1950s. Reard’s business soared, and in advertisements he
kept the bikini mystique alive by declaring that a two-piece suit wasn’t
a genuine bikini “unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.”
In prudish America, the bikini was successfully resisted until the
early 1960s, when a new emphasis on youthful liberation brought the
swimsuit en masse to U.S. beaches. It was immortalized by the pop singer
Brian Hyland, who sang “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot
Bikini” in 1960, by the teenage “beach blanket” movies of Annette
Funicello and Frankie Avalon, and by the California surfing culture
celebrated by rock groups like the Beach Boys. Since then, the
popularity of the bikini has only continued to grow.
(More Events on This Day in History)
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American Revolution
- 1775 Congress adopts Olive Branch Petition
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Automotive
- 1990 Automotive safety expert Amos Neyhart dies at age 91
-
Civil War
- 1861 Union and Rebel forces clash at Carthage, Missouri
-
Cold War
- 1959 U.S. visitors to Soviet exhibition in New York express their feelings
-
Crime
- 1921 Sox accused of throwing World Series
-
Disaster
- 1970 Pilot error causes crash in Toronto
-
General Interest
- 1865 Salvation Army founded
- 1950 First U.S. fatality in the Korean War
- 1996 First successful cloning of a mammal
- 2003 World Health Organization declares SARS contained worldwide
-
Hollywood
- 1963 Edie Falco born
-
Literary
- 1880 George Bernard Shaw quits his job
-
Music
- 1954 Elvis Presley records “That’s All Right (Mama)”
-
Old West
- 1896 Bill Doolin escapes from jail
-
Presidential
- 1865 Conspirators court-martialed for plotting to kill Lincoln, Grant and Andrew Johnson
-
Sports
- 1975 Ashe becomes first black man to win Wimbledon
-
Vietnam War
- 1966 Governors express support for U.S. global commitments
-
World War I
- 1914 Germany gives Austria-Hungary blank check assurance
-
World War II
- 1940 United States passes Export Control Act
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