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Established 8th March, 2000
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Claudia Schiffer
The History of the Bikini
On July 5, 1946, the French designer Louis R�ard introduced a daring piece creation at a fashion show in Paris. The design of his two piece swimsuit was a bra top and two triangles of cloth connected by a string with the navel as center stage. Louis R�ard had hired the nude dancer Micheline Bernardini because she was the only woman who did not hesitate to stroll around in the bikini. The suit was named after a few small South Pacific islands called Bikini Atoll where the United States had established a nuclear test site. But the creation and introduction of the bikini was also a cultural and fashionable explosion, and the swimwear world has never been the same.
In St. Tropes Brigitte Bardot helped to promote the bikini. In 1956 bikini-clad Brigitte Bardot was a merry and playful Julie in the French movie And God Created Woman, creating a hot market for the swimwear and introducing the bikini to the young generation of young women. Although "Woman" was a simple story and not a very good film, Brigitte Bardot's bikini had great implications for the swimwear business and the cultural contrasts and atmosphere in Europe. Although beautifully worn in the 1950s by actresses such as Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren, the bikini was still considered the outfit of scandal. It was banned on many European beaches for years.
The bikini was also the outfit of scandal in the USA. The impact of the presentation of the first bikini in Paris was quickly felt in California, where many women modeled the bikini for willing cameras. Actresses such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were posing in bikinis for the photographers to show the world that they had the figure to wear the bikini.
The bikini was never legally banned in USA, and the bikini was wore by women on the beaches of the the puritanical USA until around 1960. But by the early 1960's USA was ready for the bikini and more nakedness. In 1960 Brian Hyland immortalized the bikini with his song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini". The popular and melodious song illustrated the mildly indecent way the bikini was perceived. It described the woman in the song as "afraid to come out of the water" in case she risked embarrassing herself by overexposure. A chorus described the eventual scandal by singing "One, two, three, four, tell the people what she wore!"
In 1962 in Dr. No, the first 007 James Bond film, bikini-clad Ursula Andress as Honey Rider emerged from the sea, and Ursula Andress became the model for the Bond Girls in the years to come.
The bikini was a distinctive feature of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello's "beach party" films of the 1960's. In 1965 Annette Funicello (DeeDee), Deborah Walley (Bonnie Graham), Donna Loren (Donna) and Linda Evans (Sugar Kane) in the film Beach Blanket Bingo, probably the best known of the "beach party films", were dancing in bikinis. In 1966 Raquel Welch as a cavegirl wore a bikini of fur in the film One Million Years B.C, which brought her to stardom in spite of spite bad reviews of the film.
In 1964, swimsuit designer Rudi Geinreich made the monokini public, the topless swimsuit.The monokini became never popular or fashionable in USA. The American females were not ready or willing to uncover their breasts. In the meantime, the women on the beaches of the French Riviera decided to not buy topless bathing suits, they started wearing monokinis. The monokinis are bikini bottoms without the tops.
The two-piece baby-doll suits consisting of overblouse tops and bikini bottoms, enjoyed a short epoque or two in the summers of 1969 and 1970. The one-piece suits or maillots became a standard starting in the early 1970s, and have become fashion ever since.
In 1977 Rio de Janeiro and St. Tropez produced the tanga suit, also called the thong, the string bikini. The thongs are exposing practically all of one's hind end.
In 1983 Carrie Fisher, as Princess Leia, wears an ornate version of the bikini (studded collar optional) in Return of the Jedi. The film is the last most successful of the George Lucas trilogy (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).
Through the 1980's and early 1990's, the bikinis began not to be popular. Women preferred to wear maillots. In 1993 the sports bikini are unveilled. The hugging halter-top design becomes most popular because of the beach volley queen Gabrielle Reece. Some swimsuits had leg openings about as high on the hips as they could go. Later on in the 1990's bikinis and maillots were given an increased focus with the TV show Baywatch and the Internet.
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