History of the bikini - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of the bikini is a checkered one. Though the bikini

Bikini

The bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as "a woman's scanty two-piece bathing suit" or "a...

shocked when it appeared on French beaches in 1947, its origins date back millennia. Depictions of bikini-like garments appear at the Chalcolithic site of Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BCE to 5700 BCE...

, and two-piece bikini-like garments were worn by women for athletic purposes in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

as far back as 1400 BC. Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

mosaic artwork in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, dubbed "Bikini Girls" and dating back to the reign of Diocletian

Diocletian

Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....

(286-305 AD) gained significant archeological renown, and Roman statues of Venus

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

in a bikini were found elsewhere. In the modern era, the first functional two-piece swimsuit was designed in 1913 by Carl Jantzen. Australian swimmer-performer Annette Kellerman

Annette Kellerman

Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville and film star, and writer...

was arrested in 1907 for wearing a two-piece. Later it was made popular by pin-up girl

Pin-up girl

A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall...

s like swimmer-actress Esther Williams

Esther Williams

Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...

, and actresses Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner

Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

, Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

, and Lana Turner

Lana Turner

Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...

.

The modern bikini was invented by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

engineer Louis Réard

Louis Réard

Louis Réard was a French automobile engineer who invented the bikini in 1946.-Invention of bikini:Although Réard was an engineer, he was running his mother's shoe shop Les Folies Bergères in Paris by 1946. Réard and Jacques Heim, his rival designer, were competing to produce the world's smallest...

in 1946. He named it after Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....

in the Pacific, the site of an atomic bomb test

Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon after the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945...

on July 1, 1946. Réard hoped that the burst of excitement it caused would be as explosive as an atomic bomb. Since his contemporary Jacques Heim

Jacques Heim

Jacques Heim was a Parisian designer and manufacturer of women's furs and couture, whose maison de couture opened in 1930 and closed in 1969....

had called his bikini precursor the Atome in view of its size, Réard claimed to have "split the Atome" to make it even smaller. His innovation was to expose the navel, which was not done in earlier two-piece bathing costumes. Though a moderate hit in France, it was not well accepted in other parts of the world. The Miss World

Miss World

The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...

contest in UK, the Hays production code in the US, and the Catholic countries

Roman Catholicism by country

The tables below represent statistics with regards to the Catholic Church by country.-Sources used in the table:Most of the figures are taken from the CIA Factbook....

banned the costume. But, the advent of bikinis in popular media, including Ursula Andress

Ursula Andress

Ursula Andress is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr...

's white bikini

White bikini of Ursula Andress

The White bikini of Ursula Andress was a white bikini worn by Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in the 1962 James Bond film, Dr. No...

in Dr. No.
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...

, Brian Hyland

Brian Hyland

Brian Hyland is an American pop recording artist who was particularly successful during the early 1960s. He continued recording into the 1970s...

's song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

"Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" is a novelty song telling the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka dot bikini at the beach, who in the first verse is too afraid to leave the locker where she has changed into her bikini; in the second, she has made it to the beach but sits...

", and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is published annually by Sports Illustrated. It features fashion models wearing swimwear in exotic locales. According to some, the magazine is the arbiter of supermodel succession. In addition, the issue is a media nexus that in 2005 carried in advertising....

, eventually gained social acceptance for the bikini. By the early 2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million business annually, and boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing

Bikini waxing

Bikini waxing is the epilation of body hair in and around the pubic region, commonly by women, by the use of wax. With certain styles of women's swimwear, pubic hair may become visible around the crotch area of a swimsuit. Visible pubic hair is widely culturally disapproved of and considered to be...

and the sun tanning

Sun tanning

Sun tanning or simply tanning is the process whereby skin color is darkened or tanned. The process is most often a result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun or from artificial sources, such as a tanning bed, but can also be a result of windburn or reflected light...

industries. Further variants were added to the bikini family of beachwears and bathing costumes, contributing to the popular lexicon a variety of -kinis and -inis.

In antiquity

In the Chalcolithic era around 5600 BC, the mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BCE to 5700 BCE...

, a large ancient settlement in southern Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

, was depicted astride two leopards wearing a costume somewhat like a bikini. Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes are depicted on Greek urn

Urn

An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s...

s and paintings dating back to 1400 BC. Active women of ancient Greece wore a breastband

Bandeau

- General Attire :A bandeau , is a strapless garment worn around a woman's breasts. It may be fastened in the front or back or be sufficiently elastic so as to have no fastener at all. In a strict sense a bandeau has but two edges, although it is sometimes manufactured with a detachable halter...

called a mastodeton or an apodesmos, which continued to be used as an undergarment in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. While men in ancient Greece abandoned the perizoma, partly high-cut briefs

Briefs

Briefs are a type of short, tight underwear and swimwear, as opposed to styles where the material extends down the legs.In the case of men's underwear, briefs, unlike boxer shorts, hold the wearer's genitals in a relatively fixed position, which make briefs a popular underwear choice for men who...

and partly loincloth, women performers and acrobats continued to wear it.

Artwork dating back to the Diocletian period (286-305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale

Villa Romana del Casale

Villa Romana del Casale is a Roman villa built in the first quarter of the 4th century and located about 5 km outside the town of Piazza Armerina, Sicily, southern Italy...

, Sicily

Sicily

, excavated by Gino Vinicio Gentile in 1950-60, depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...

s on the floor. The images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls", exercising in clothing that would pass as bikinis today, are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles at the site. In the artwork "Coronation of the Winner" done in floor mosaic in the Chamber of the Ten Maidens (Sala delle Dieci Ragazze in Italian) the bikini girls are depicted weight-lifting, discus throwing, and running. Some activities depicted have been described as dancing, as their bodies resemble dancers rather than athletes. Coronation in the title of the mosaic comes from a woman in a toga

Toga

The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a cloth of perhaps 20 ft in length which was wrapped around the body and was generally worn over a tunic. The toga was made of wool, and the tunic under it often was made of linen. After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn...

with a crown in her hand and one of the maidens holding a palm frond. Some academics maintain that the nearby image of Eros

Eros

Eros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....

, the primordial god of lust, love, and intercourse, was added later, demonstrating the owner's predilections and strengthening the association of the bikini with the erotic. Similar mosaics have been discovered in Tellaro

Tellaro

Tellaro is a village on the east coast of the Gulf of La Spezia in Liguria, northern Italy. It is a frazione of the comune of Lerici.-Notes and references:...

in northern Italy and Patti, another part of Sicily. Prostitution, skimpy clothes and athletic bodies were related in ancient Rome, as images were found of female sex workers exercising with dumbbell

Dumbbell

The dumbbell, a type of free weight, is a piece of equipment used in weight training. It can be used individually or in pairs .-History:...

s/clappers

Clapper (musical instrument)

A clapper is a basic form of percussion instrument. It consists of two long solid pieces that are clapped together producing sound. A straightforward instrument to produce and play, they exist in many forms in many different cultures around the world. Clappers can take a number of forms and be made...

and other equipment wearing costumes similar to the Bikini Girls.

Charles Seltman

Charles Seltman

Charles Seltman PhD was an English art historian and writer.Seltman was born in Paddington, London, England in 1886 to Ernest Seltman and a devout Scottish mother. He was educated at Berkhamsted School and during World War I served in the Suffolk Regiment in France...

, a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...

, curator of the Archaeology Museum there and an editor of The Cambridge Ancient History, illustrated a chapter titled "The new woman" in his book Women in Antiquity with a 1950s model wearing an identical bikini against the 4th-century mosaics from Piazza Armerina

Piazza Armerina

Piazza Armerina is an Italian comune in the province of Enna of the autonomous island region of Sicily.-History:...

as part of a sisterhood between the bikini-clad female athletes of ancient Greco-Romans and modern woman. A photograph of the mosaic was used by Sarah Pomeroy, Professor of Classics at Hunter College

Hunter College

Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

CUNY Graduate Center

The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...

, in the 1994 British edition of her book Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves to emphasize a similar identification. According to archeologist George M.A. Hanfmann

George M.A. Hanfmann

George Maxim Anossov Hanfmann was a famous archaeologist and scholar of ancient Mediterranean art.-Biography:...

the bikini girls made the learned observers realize "how modern the ancients were".

In ancient Rome

Roman Empire

, the bikini-style bottom, a wrapped loincloth

Loincloth

A loincloth is a one-piece male garment, sometimes kept in place by a belt, which covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks.-History and types:Loincloths are being and have been worn:*in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted...

of cloth or leather, was called a subligar or subligaculum
Subligaculum
A subligaculum was a kind of undergarment worn by ancient Romans. It could come either in the form of a pair of shorts, or in the form of a simple loincloth wrapped around the lower body. It could be worn both by men and women. In particular, it was part of the dress of gladiators, athletes, and of...

("little binding underneath"), while a band of cloth or leather to support the breasts was called strophium or mamillare. The exercising bikini girls from Piazza Armenia wear subligaria, scanty briefs made as a dainty version of a man's perizoma, and a strophium band about the breasts, often referred to in literature as just fascia, which can mean any kind of bandage. Observation of artifacts and experiments

Experimental archaeology

Experimental archaeology employs a number of different methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches in order to generate and test hypotheses, based upon archaeological source material, like ancient structures or artifacts. It should not be confused with primitive technology which is not concerned...

shows bands had to be wrapped several times around the breasts, largely to flatten them in a style popular with flapper

Flapper

Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...

s in the 1920s. These Greco-Roman breastband

Bandeau

s may have flattened big breasts and padded small breasts to look bigger. Evidence suggests regular use. The "bikini girls" from Piazza Armenia, some of whom sport the braless look of the late 20th century, do not depict any propensity of such popularity in style. One bottom, made of leather, from Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

was displayed at the Museum of London

Museum of London

The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Prehistoric to the present day. The museum is located close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the striking Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 70s as an innovative approach to re-development within a bomb damaged...

in 1998. There has been no evidence that these bikinis were for swimming or sun-bathing

Sun tanning

.

Finds especially in Pompeii

Pompeii

The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...

show the Roman goddess Venus

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

wearing a bikini. A statue of Venus in a bikini was found in a cupboard in the southwest corner in Casa della Venere, others were found in the front hall. A statue of Venus was recovered from the tablinum
Tablinum
In Roman architecture, a tablinum was a room generally situated on one side of the atrium and opposite to the entrance; it opened in the rear on to the peristyle, with either a large window or only an anteroom or curtain...

of the house of Julia Felix

House of Julia Felix

Julia Felix, Felix a Roman cognomen meaning "The Fortunate One" was an epithet of the dictator L. Cornelius Sulla and his descendants in the Republican period. In the Imperial period it was a name involving luck as well as one of the most common cognomina and slave names.-Background:Julia Felix...

, and another from an atrium

Atrium (architecture)

In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...

in the garden at Via Dell'Abbondanza

House of Loreius Tiburtinus

The House of Loreius Tiburtinus is renowned for its meticulous and well preserved artwork as well as its large gardens. It is located in the famed Roman city of Pompeii...

. Naples National Archaeological Museum

Naples National Archaeological Museum

The Naples National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Naples, southern Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a large collection of Roman artifacts from Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum...

, which opened its limited viewing gallery of more explicit exhibits in 2000, also exhibits a "Venus in Bikini". The museum's exhibits include female statues wearing see-through gold lamé

Lamé (fabric)

Lamé is a type of fabric woven or knit with thin ribbons of metallic yarns, as opposed to guimpé, where the ribbons are wrapped around a fibre yarn. It is usually gold or silver in color; sometimes copper lamé is seen. Lamé comes in different varieties, depending on the composition of the other...

brassiere

Brassiere

A brassiere is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts....

, basque

Basque (clothing)

A torsolette is a short corselette, covering the chest to the waist line.The undergarment is similar to a Victorian-era corset, but with less compression of the ribs. The modern-day Torsolette features lace-up or hook-and-eye fastening, as well as boning or vertical seams for structure and support...

and knickers. The Kings of Naples discovered these Pompeii artifacts, including the one meter tall, almost unclothed statue of Venus painted in gold leaf with something like a modern bikini. They found them so shocking that for long periods the secret chamber was opened only to "mature persons of secure morals". Even after the doors were opened, only 20 visitors were to be admitted at a time, and children under 12 were not allowed into the new part of the museum without their parents' or a teacher's permission.

There are references to bikinis in ancient literature as well. Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, the writer ranked alongside Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

and Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

, suggests the breastband or long strip of cloth wrapped around the breasts and tucked in the ends, is a good place to hide love-letters. Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

, a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

poet from Hispania

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

who published between AD 86 and 103, satirized a female athlete he named Philaenis, who played ball in a bikini-like garb quite bluntly, making her drink, gorge and vomit in abundance and hinting at her lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

ism. In an epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

on Chione

Chione (daughter of Daedalion)

In Greek mythology Chione was the daughter of Daedalion. She was very beautiful, and had countless suitors, including the gods Apollo and Hermes. Apollo waited for nightfall and then approached her in the guise of an old woman. Hermes put her to sleep and raped her...

, Martial strangely mentions a sex worker who went to the bathhouse in a bikini, while it was more natural to go unclothed. Reportedly Theodora

Theodora (6th century)

Theodora , was empress of the Roman Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. Like her husband, she is a saint in the Orthodox Church, commemorated on November 14...

, the 6th century empress of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

wore a bikini when she appeared as an actress before she captured the heart of emperor Justinian I

Justinian I

Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

19th century to 1930s: Precursors

The modern bikini has had a checkered history. The first domestic swimsuit for "decency" appeared in 1830. Featuring red and white horizontal stripes from ankle to wrist, it was nicknamed the "prison suit". In 1907, Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman

Annette Kellerman

Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville and film star, and writer...

was arrested on a Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

beach for wearing a form-fitting one-piece although it became accepted swimsuit attire for women by 1910. Pictures of her were produced as evidence in the Esquire magazine
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

versus United States Postmaster General

United States Postmaster General

The United States Postmaster General is the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Postal Service. The office, in one form or another, is older than both the United States Constitution and the United States Declaration of Independence...

legal battle over indecency in 1943. In 1913, inspired by the introduction of females into Olympic swimming, the designer Carl Jantzen made the first functional two-piece swimwear, a close-fitting one-piece with shorts on the bottom and short sleeves on top. Silent films such as The Water Nymph
The Water Nymph
The Water Nymph is a 1912 comedy "split reel" short starring Mabel Normand and directed by Mack Sennett. Lithely athletic Normand performed her own diving stunts for the film, which was the first Keystone comedy....

(1912) saw Mabel Normand

Mabel Normand

Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...

in revealing attire, and this was followed by the daringly dressed Sennett Bathing Beauties (1915–1929). The first annual bathing-suit day at New York's Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

in 1916 was a landmark. The swimsuit apron, a design for early swimwear, disappeared by 1918, leaving a tunic covering the shorts.

By the 1930s, necklines plunged at the back, sleeves disappeared and sides were cut away. Hollywood endorsed the new glamour with films such as Neptune's Daughter
Neptune's Daughter (1949 film)
Neptune's Daughter is a 1949 musical romantic comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalbán, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat and Mel Blanc...

in which Esther Williams

Esther Williams

wore provocatively named costumes such as "Double Entendre" and "Honey Child". Williams also portrayed Kellerman in the 1952 film Million Dollar Mermaid
Million Dollar Mermaid
Million Dollar Mermaid is a 1952 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer biographical musical film of the life of Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. from a screenplay by Everett Freeman. The music score was by Adolph Deutsch, the...

(titled as The One Piece Bathing Suit in UK). American designer Adele Simpson

Adele Simpson

Adele Simpson was a child performer in vaudeville who danced in productions with Milton Berle and other entertainers. She became a fashion designerwhose influence continued for nearly five decades.-Design career:...

, a Coty American Fashion Critics' Awards

Coty Award

The Coty American Fashion Critics' Awards were first announced in January 1942 by the cosmetics and perfume company Coty, Inc. to promote and celebrate American fashion, and encourage design during the Second World War. The first awards were presented in January 1943, with Norman Norell winning...

winner (1947) and a notable alumna of the New York art school Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

, who believed clothes must be comfortable and practical designed a large part of her wardrobe which included mostly one-piece suits that were considered fashionable even in early 1980s. This was when Cole of California started marketing revealing prohibition suits and Catalina Swimwear

Catalina swimwear

Catalina is one of the oldest apparel manufacturers in California and one of the best known names in the swimwear industry. Their history began in 1907, as Bentz Knitting Mills, a small manufacturer of underwear and sweaters. The name was changed to Pacific Knitting Mills in 1912, accompanied by...

introduced almost bare-back designs.

With new materials like lastex and nylon

Nylon

Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers known generically as polyamides, first produced on February 28, 1935, by Wallace Carothers at DuPont's research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station...

, by 1934 the swimsuit started hugging the body and had shoulder straps to lower for tanning. Burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

and vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

performers wore two-piece outfits in the 1920s, films of holidaymakers in Germany in the 1930s show women wearing two-piece suits, and in 1932 French designer Madeleine Vionnet

Madeleine Vionnet

This article is about the haute couture designer. For the fashion label, see Vionnet Madeleine Vionnet was a French fashion designer...

offered an exposed midriff in an evening gown. They were seen a year later in Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933 is a pre-code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin , staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley...

. The Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...

film Footlight Parade
Footlight Parade
-Cast:*James Cagney as Chester Kent, creator of musical prologues*Joan Blondell as Nan Prescott, his secretary*Ruby Keeler as Bea Thorn, dancer turned secretary turned dancer*Dick Powell as Scott 'Scotty' Blair, juvenile lead, former protege of Mrs...

of 1932 showcases aquachoreography that featured bikinis. Dorothy Lamour

Dorothy Lamour

Dorothy Lamour was an American film actress. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope .-Early life:Lamour was born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Carmen Louise Dorothy...

's The Hurricane
The Hurricane (1937 film)
The Hurricane is a 1937 film set in the South Seas, directed by John Ford and produced by Samuel Goldwyn, about a Polynesian who is unjustly imprisoned. The climax features a special effects hurricane. It stars Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, with Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond...

(1937) also showed two-piece bathing suits. In 1935 American designer Claire McCardell

Claire McCardell

Claire McCardell was an American fashion designer in the arena of ready-to-wear clothing in the 20th century. From the 1930s to the 1950s, she was known for designing functional, affordable, and stylish women’s sportswear within the constraints of mass-production, and is today acknowledged as the...

cut out the side panels of a maillot

Maillot

The maillot is the fashion designer's name for a woman's one-piece swimsuit, also called a tank suit. A maillot swimsuit generally consists of a tank-style torso top with high-cut legs...

-style bathing suit, the bikini's forerunner. A woman's cotton sun-top of 1939, printed with palm trees, provides a good example here.

Two-piece swimsuits without the usual skirt panel and other superfluous material started appearing in the US when the government ordered a 10% reduction in fabric used in woman's swimwear in 1943 as wartime rationing. By that time, two-piece swimsuits were frequent on American beaches. The July 9, 1945, Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

shows women in Paris wearing similar items. Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

and Lana Turner

Lana Turner

tried similar swimwear or beachwear. Pin ups

Pin-up girl

of Hayworth and Esther Williams

Esther Williams

in the costume were widely distributed. The most provocative swimsuit was the 1946 Moonlight Buoy, a bottom and a top of material that weighed only eight ounces. What made the Moonlight Buoy distinctive was a large cork

Cork (material)

Cork is an impermeable, buoyant material, a prime-subset of bark tissue that is harvested for commercial use primarily from Quercus suber , which is endemic to southwest Europe and northwest Africa...

buckle

Buckle

The buckle or clasp is a device used for fastening two loose ends, with one end attached to it and the other held by a catch in a secure but adjustable manner. Usually overlooked and taken for granted, the invention of the buckle has been indispensable in securing two ends before the invention of...

attached to the bottoms, which made it possible to tie the top to the cork buckle and splash around au naturel

Naturism

Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....

while keeping both parts of the suit afloat. Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

magazine had a photo essay on the Moonlight Buoy and wrote, "The name of the suit, of course, suggests the nocturnal conditions under which nude swimming is most agreeable."

Swimwear of the 1940s, 50s and early 60s followed the silhouette mostly from early 1930s. Keeping in line with the ultra-feminine look dominated by Dior

Christian Dior SA

Christian Dior S.A. is a French company which owns the high-fashion clothing producer and retailer Christian Dior Couture, as well as holding 42% of LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury goods firm. Both Dior and LVMH are controlled and chaired by businessman Bernard...

, it evolved into a dress with cinched waists and constructed bustlines, accessorized with earrings, bracelets, hats, scarves, sunglasses, hand bags and cover-ups. Many of these pre-bikinis had fancy names like Double Entendre, Honey Child (to maximize small bosoms

Breast

The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...

), Shipshape (to minimize large bosoms

Breast

), Diamond Lil (trimmed with rhinestone

Rhinestone

A rhinestone or paste or diamante is a diamond simulant made from rock crystal, glass or acrylic.Originally, rhinestones were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine. The availability was greatly increased around 1775 when the Alsatian jeweller Georg Friedrich Strass had the idea to imitate...

s and lace

Lace

Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...

), Swimming In Mink (trimmed with fur

Fur clothing

Fur clothing is clothing made of the fur of animals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing; thought to have been widely used as hominids first expanded outside of Africa. Some view fur as luxurious and warm; others reject it due to moral beliefs...

across the bodice

Bodice

A bodice, historically, is an article of clothing for women, covering the body from the neck to the waist. In modern usage it typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the upper portion of a modern dress to distinguish it from...

) and Spearfisherman (heavy poplin

Poplin

Poplin, also called tabinet , is a strong fabric in a plain weave of any fiber or blend, with crosswise ribs that typically gives a corded surface.Poplin traditionally consisted of a silk warp with a weft of worsted yarn...

with a rope belt for carrying a knife), Beau Catcher, Leading Lady, Pretty Foxy, Side Issue, Forecast, and Fabulous Fit. According to Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...

the swimwear had become more of "state of dress, not undress" by mid 1950s. But, to a bikini, size makes all the difference. Pin-up queen and Hollywood star Williams, who also was an Amateur Athletic Union

Amateur Athletic Union

The Amateur Athletic Union is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs.-History:The AAU was founded in 1888 to...

champion in the 100 meter freestyle

Freestyle swimming

Freestyle is an unregulated swimming style used in swimming competitions according to the rules of FINA. The front crawl stroke is almost universally used during a freestyle race, as this style is generally the fastest...

(1939) and an Olympics swimming

Swimming at the Summer Olympics

Swimming has been a sport at every modern Summer Olympics. It has been open to women since 1912. Along with track & field athletics and gymnastics it is one of the most popular spectator sports at the Games and the one with the largest number of events....

finalist (1940), commented, "A bikini is a thoughtless act." Popularity of the charms of Williams were to vanish along with pre-bikinis with fancy names over the next few decades.

1940s to 1950s: Introduction and resistance

The modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard

Louis Réard

and separately by fashion designer Jacques Heim

Jacques Heim

Jacques Heim was a Parisian designer and manufacturer of women's furs and couture, whose maison de couture opened in 1930 and closed in 1969....

in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer but by 1946 he was running his mother's lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergère in Paris. Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume. It comprised two pieces, the bottom large enough to cover its wearer's navel. In May 1946, he advertised it as the world's "smallest bathing suit". Réard sliced the top off the bottoms and advertised it as "smaller than the smallest swimsuit". The idea struck him when he saw women rolling up their beachwear to get a better tan.

Réard could not find a model to wear his design. He ended up hiring Micheline Bernardini

Micheline Bernardini

Micheline Bernardini is a former nude dancer at the Casino de Paris before being chosen by Louis Réard to model the first modern-day bikini on July 5, 1946 at Piscine Molitor in Paris.-The first bikini:...

, a nude dancer

Striptease

A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...

from the Casino de Paris. That bikini, a string bikini with a g-string

G-string

A G-string is a type of thong underwear or swimsuit, a narrow piece of cloth, leather, or plastic, that covers or holds the genitals, passes between the buttocks, and is attached to a band around the hips, worn as swimwear or underwear by women and men...

back of 30 square inches (194 cm²) of cloth with newspaper type print, was introduced on July 5 at Piscine Molitor, a public pool in Paris. The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received 50,000 letters. Heim's design was the first worn on the beach, but the design was given its name by Réard. Reard's business soared. In advertisements he kept the bikini alive by declaring that a two-piece wasn't a genuine bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring." French newspaper Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

wrote, "People were craving the simple pleasures of the sea and the sun. For women, wearing a bikini signaled a kind of second liberation. There was really nothing sexual about this. It was instead a celebration of freedom and a return to the joys in life."

But sales did not pick up around the world as women stuck to traditional two-piece swimsuits. Réard went back to designing orthodox knickers to sell in his mother’s shop. Actresses in movies like My Favorite Brunette
My Favorite Brunette
My Favorite Brunette is a 1947 movie spoofing movie detectives and the film noir style. Starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, it also features Lon Chaney, Jr...

(1947) and the model on a 1948 cover of LIFE were shown in traditional two-piece swimwear, not the bikini. In 1950, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine interviewed American swimsuit mogul Fred Cole, owner of Cole of California, and reported that he had "little but scorn for France’s famed Bikinis," because they were designed for "diminutive Gallic women". "French girls have short legs," he explained, "Swimsuits have to be hiked up at the sides to make their legs look longer." One writer described it as a "two-piece bathing suit which reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." According to Kevin Jones, curator and fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising

Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising

FIDM, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, is a specialized for-profit private college located in California dedicated to educating students for the Fashion, Entertainment, Beauty, Interior Design, and Graphic Design industries....

, "Réard was ahead of his time by about 15 to 20 years. Only women in the vanguard, mostly upper-class European women embraced it, just like the upper-class European women who first cast off their corsets after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

." Australian designer Paula Straford introduced the bikini to Gold Coast

Gold Coast, Queensland

Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...

in 1952.

Despite the controversy, some in France admired "naughty girls who decorate our sun-drenched beaches". Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...

, photographed wearing similar garments on beaches during the Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

(1953) helped popularize the bikini in Europe in the 1950s and created a market in the US. Photographs of Bardot in a bikini, according to The Guardian, turned Saint-Tropez

Saint-Tropez

Saint-Tropez is a town, 104 km to the east of Marseille, in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. It is also the principal town in the canton of Saint-Tropez....

into the bikini capital of the world. The Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

, held on the French Riviera each May, remains as a reminder of the days when a starlet was as big as her swimsuit was brief. Esther Williams

Esther Williams

, Betty Grable

Betty Grable

Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...

, Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

and Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot

all used the swimsuit as a career prop to their sex appeal, with Bardot identified as the original Cannes bathing beauty. Cannes played a crucial role in the career of Brigitte Bardot, who in turn played a crucial role in promoting the Festival, largely by starting the trend of being photographed in a bikini at her first appearance at the festival. As late as in 1959, Anne Cole, a US swimsuit designer and daughter of Fred Cole, said about a Bardot bikini, "It's nothing more than a G-string. It's at the razor's edge of decency." Modern Girl Magazine, a fashion magazine from the United States, was quoted in 1957 as saying: "it is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing".
The bikini became more accepted in parts of Europe when worn by fifties "love goddess" actresses such as Bardot, Anita Ekberg

Anita Ekberg

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg is a Swedish model, actress and cult sex symbol. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita which features the legendary scene of her cavorting in Trevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni.-Biography:Ekberg was born in...

and Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...

. But, Spain, Portugal and Italy, three countries neighboring France, banned the bikini, and it remained prohibited in many US states. In July 1959, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

searched for bikinis around New York City and found only a couple. Writer Meredith Hall

Meredith Hall

Meredith Hall is a writer and professor at University of New Hampshire. She is the author of the memoir Without a Map.At age forty-four, Meredith graduated from Bowdoin College and began writing...

wrote in her memoir that till 1965 one could get a citation for wearing a bikini in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire

Hampton Beach, New Hampshire

Hampton Beach is a village district, census-designated place, and beach resort within the town of Hampton, in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, located on the Atlantic Ocean. Its population at the 2010 census was 2,275. Hampton Beach is located in Rockingham County, approximately south of Portsmouth...

. By the end of the decade a vogue for strapless styles developed, wired or bound for firmness and fit, and a taste for bare-shouldered two-pieces called Little Sinners. But, it was the halterneck

Halterneck

Halterneck is a style of strap which holds up women's clothing which features a single strap or material which runs from the front of the garment around the back of the wearer's neck, and which enables most of the wearer's back to be uncovered...

bikini that caused the most moral controversy because of its degree of exposure. So much so as bikini designs called "Huba Huba" and "Revealation" were withdrawn from fashion parades in Sydney as immodest.

In 1951, the first Miss World contest, originally the Festival Bikini Contest, was organized by Eric Morley

Eric Morley

Eric Douglas Morley was born in Holborn, London, England. He was the founder of the Miss World pageant. He was married to now head of the pageant Julia Morley from 1960.-Life and career:...

as a mid-century advertisement for swimwear at the Festival of Britain

Festival of Britain

The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...

. The press welcomed the spectacle and referred to it as Miss World, and Morley registered the name as a trademark. When, the winner Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. The bikinis were outlawed and evening gown

Evening gown

An evening gown is a long flowing women's dress usually worn to a formal affair. It ranges from tea and ballerina to full-length. Evening gowns are often made of a luxury fabric such as chiffon, velvet, satin, or silk...

s introduced instead. Håkansson remains the only Miss World crowned in a bikini, a crowning that was condemned by the Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

. Bikini was banned from beauty pageants around the world after the controversy. Feminist groups published fliers against bikinis in the contest in 1970. The National Legion of Decency

National Legion of Decency

The National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...

pressured Hollywood to keep bikinis from being featured in Hollywood movies. The Hays production code for US movies, introduced in 1930 but not strictly enforced till 1934, allowed two-piece gowns but prohibited navels on screen. But between the introduction and enforcement of the code two Tarzan

Tarzan

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

movies, Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate
Tarzan and His Mate
Tarzan and His Mate is a Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the second in the Tarzan film series to star Johnny Weissmuller....

(1934), were released in which actress Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...

wore skimpy bikini-like leather outfits. Film historian Bruce Goldstein described her clothes in the first film as "It's a loincloth open up the side. You can see loin." In reaction to the introduction of the bikini in Paris, American swimwear manufacturers compromised cautiously by producing their own similar design that included a halter

Halterneck

and a midriff-bottom variation. The early bikinis often covered the navel but if it showed in pictures, magazines like Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...

airbrush

Airbrush

An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.-History:...

ed it out. Navel-less women ensured the early dominance of European bikini makers over their American counterparts.

Since 1960s: Popularity and acceptance

In 1962, Bond Girl Ursula Andress

Ursula Andress

Ursula Andress is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr...

emerged from the sea wearing a white bikini

White bikini of Ursula Andress

The White bikini of Ursula Andress was a white bikini worn by Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in the 1962 James Bond film, Dr. No...

in Dr. No
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...

. The scene has been named one of the most memorable of the series. Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

declared it the top bikini moment in film history, Virgin Media

Virgin Media

Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...

puts it ninth in its top ten, and top in the Bond girl

Bond girl

A Bond girl is a character or actress portraying a love interest, of James Bond in a film, novel, or video game. They occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as "Pussy Galore", "Plenty O'Toole", "Xenia Onatopp", or "Holly Goodhead"...

s. The Herald (Glasgow)

The Herald (Glasgow)

The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...

put the scene as best ever on the basis of a poll. It also helped shape the career of Ursula Andress, the look of the quintessential Bond movie. According to Andress, "This bikini made me into a success." That white bikini has been described as a "defining moment in the sixties liberalization of screen eroticism". Because of the shocking effect from how revealing it was at the time, she got referred to by the joke nickname "Ursula Undress". According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, "So iconic was the look that it was repeated 40 years later by Halle Berry

Halle Berry

Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

in the Bond movie Die Another Day
Die Another Day
Die Another Day is the 20th spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth and last film to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond; it is also the last Bond film of the original timeline with the series being rebooted with Casino Royale...

." In 2001, the Dr. No bikini sold at an auction for US$61,500.

The appearance of bikinis kept increasing both on screen and off. The sex appeal prompted film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

productions, including Dr. Strangelove. They include the surf movie

Surf movie

Surf movies fall into three distinct genres:*the surfing documentary - targeting the surfing enthusiast*the 1960s beach party films - targeting the broader community and*fictional feature films with a focus on the reality of surfing...

s of the early 1960s. In 1960, Brian Hyland

Brian Hyland

Brian Hyland is an American pop recording artist who was particularly successful during the early 1960s. He continued recording into the 1970s...

's song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

" inspired a bikini-buying spree. By 1963, the movie Beach Party
Beach Party
Beach Party was the first of several beach party films from American International Pictures aimed at a teen audience. It was directed by William Asher and written by Lou Rusoff. The main actors included Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, and Annette Funicello...

, starring Annette Funicello

Annette Funicello

Annette Joanne Funicello is an American singer and actress. She was Walt Disney's most popular cast member of the original Mickey Mouse Club, and went on to appear in a series of beach party films.-Early life and early stardom:...

and Frankie Avalon

Frankie Avalon

Frankie Avalon is an American actor, singer, playwright, and former teen idol.-Career:By the time he was 12, Avalon was on U.S. television playing his trumpet. As a teenager he played with Bobby Rydell in Rocco and the Saints...

, led a wave of films that made the bikini pop-culture symbol. In the sexual revolution in 1960s America

Sexual revolution in 1960s America

The 1960s in the United States are often perceived today as a period of profound societal change, one in which a great many politically minded individuals, who on the whole were young and educated, sought to influence the status quo....

, bikinis became popular fast. In 1965, a woman told Time it was "almost square" not to wear one. In 1967 the magazine wrote that "65% of the young set had already gone over." Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

first featured a bikini on its cover in 1962. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

debuted two years later. This popularity was reinforced by its appearance in movies like How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini is a 1965 beach party film from American International Pictures. The sixth entry in a seven-film series, the movie features Mickey Rooney, Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy, and Beverly Adams...

featuring Annette Funicello and One Million Years B.C featuring Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch

Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...

. Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...

, Gina Lollobrigida

Gina Lollobrigida

Gina Lollobrigida is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptress. She was one of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was also an iconic sex symbol of the 1950s. Today, she remains an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the...

and Jane Russell

Jane Russell

Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....

helped the growing popularity further. Pin-up posters of Monroe and Mansfield and of Hayworth, Bardot and Raquel Welch contributed significantly . By the end of the century, the bikini went on to become the most popular beachwear around the globe, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard due to "the power of women, and not the power of fashion". As he explains, "The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women", though one survey tells 85% of all bikinis never touch the water. By the early 2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group

NPD Group

The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company. The NPD Group consistently ranks among the top 25 market research companies in the independent Honomichl Top 50 report, which the media and the research industry acknowledge as a credible source of information on the market...

, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries.

When Mansfield and her husband Miklós Hargitay toured for stage shows, newspapers wrote that Mansfield convinced the rural population that she owned more bikinis than anyone. She showed a fair amount of her 40 inches (1,016 mm) bust, as well as her midriff and legs, in the leopard-spot bikini she wore for her stage shows. Kathryn Wexler of The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...

wrote, "In the beginning as we know it, there was Jayne Mansfield. Here she preens in leopard-print or striped bikinis, sucking in air to showcase her well noted physical assets." Her leopard-skin

Leopard (pattern)

Leopard is a term used to describe a spotted color pattern, particularly in the hair coat or skin of animals, but also used to describe spotting patterns in plants and fabrics...

bikini remains one of the earlier specimens of the fashion. Other memorable bikini moments include Raquel Welch as the prehistoric cavegirl in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C.
One Million Years B.C.
One Million Years B.C. is a 1966 British adventure/fantasy film starring Raquel Welch, set - loosely - in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions, and was a remake of the 1940 Hollywood film One Million B.C., and it recreates many of the scenes of that film...

, and Phoebe Cates

Phoebe Cates

Phoebe Cates is an American film actress, model, and entrepreneur known for her roles in several teen films, most notably Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins.-Early life:...

in the 1982 teen film

Teen film

Teen films is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation...

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written by Cameron Crowe and adapted from his 1981 book of the same name...

. These two bikini moments were ranked 86 and 84 in Channel 4

Channel 4

(UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

)'s list of the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments in Film. Raquel Welch appeared in five interjected repetitions of "Raquel Welch in a fur bikini" becoming the one special thing that increased the value of the film, making people want to see it again and again.

Bollywood

Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

actress Sharmila Tagore

Sharmila Tagore

Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...

struck a memorable moment in 1967 when she appeared in a bikini in An Evening in Paris
An Evening in Paris
An Evening In Paris is a 1967 Indian Hindi film. Produced and directed by Shakti Samanta, Story by Sachin Bhowmick. The movie stars Shammi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore in a double role, Pran as the villain, and Rajindernath in the comic subplot.- Synopsis :...

, a film mostly remembered for the first bikini appearance of an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n actress. She also posed in a bikini for the glossy Filmfare
Filmfare
Filmfare is an English-language tabloid-sized magazine about Indian cinema. Published by The Times Group, India's largest media services conglomerate, in Mumbai , it highlights the doings of the Bollywood film scene...

magazine. The costume shocked the conservative Indian audience, but it also set a trend of bikini-clad actresses carried forward by Parveen Babi

Parveen Babi

Parveen Babi was an Indian actress, who is most remembered for her glamorous roles alongside top heroes of the 1970s and early 1980s in blockbusters like Deewar, Namak Halaal, Amar Akbar Anthony and Shaan...

(in Yeh Nazdeekiyan, 1982), Zeenat Aman

Zeenat Aman

Zeenat Aman is an Indian actress who has appeared in Hindi films, notably in the 1970s and 1980s. She was the second runner up in the Miss India Contest and went on to win the Miss Asia Pacific in 1970...

(in Heera Panna
Heera Panna
Heera Panna is a 1973 Hindi film. Written, produced and directed by Dev Anand for Navketan films, the film stars Dev Anand, Zeenat Aman, Rakhee, Rehman, Jeevan, A.K. Hangal, Paintal and Dheeraj Kumar.The film's music is composed by R. D. Burman.-Plot:...

1973; Qurbani
Qurbani (1980 film)
Qurbani is a 1980 Indian Bollywood movie. The word "qurbani" means "sacrifice" in English. Produced and directed by Feroz Khan . The film stars Feroz Khan, Vinod Khanna, Zeenat Aman, Amjad Khan, Shakti Kapoor, Aruna Irani, Amrish Puri and Kadar Khan...

, 1980) and Dimple Kapadia

Dimple Kapadia

Dimple Chunnibhai Kapadia is an Indian film actress. She made her acting debut at the age of 16, playing the title role in Raj Kapoor's teen romance Bobby . In that same year she married Indian actor Rajesh Khanna, and retired from acting. Kapadia returned to films in 1984 after her separation...

(in Bobby
Bobby (1973 film)
Bobby is a 1973 Bollywood film directed by Raj Kapoor. The film was widely popular, and widely imitated. It also represented the film début for Dimple Kapadia and the first leading role for Raj Kapoor's son, Rishi Kapoor....

, 1973) in the early 1970s. Wearing a bikini put her name in the Indian press as one of Bollywood's ten hottest actresses of all time, and was a transgression of female identity through a reversal of the state of modesty, which functions as a signifier of femininity in Bombay films. But, when Tagore was the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification

Central Board of Film Certification

The Central Board of Film Certification is a Government of India regulatory body and censorship board of India controlled by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It reviews, rates and censors motion pictures, television shows, television ads, and promotional material...

, she expressed concerns about the rise of the bikini in Indian films. By that time it became usual for actors to change outfits a dozen times in a single song — starting with a chiffon

Chiffon (fabric)

Chiffon, , from the French word for a cloth or rag, is a lightweight, balanced plain-woven sheer fabric woven of alternate S- and Z-twist crepe yarns. The twist in the crepe yarns puckers the fabric slightly in both directions after weaving, giving it some stretch and a slightly rough...

sari

Sari

A sari or sareeThe name of the garment in various regional languages include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. It is popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal,...

and ending up wearing a bikini. In Nissim Ezekiel

Nissim Ezekiel

' was an Indian Jewish poet, playwright, editor and art-critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English....

's one act Indian English

Indian English literature

Indian English literature refers to the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is also associated with the works of members of the Indian diaspora, such as V.S...

moral play The Song of Deprivation, the protagonist becomes a "different woman altogether" as she takes off her bikini and gets into a sari. Cultural and literary evidence, especially in the form of calypsos

Calypso music

Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...

("Whole day she jumping shamelessly/In a tiny little bikini"), show that Indo-Caribbean

Indo-Caribbean

Indo-Caribbean people or Indo-Caribbeans are Caribbean people with roots in India or the Indian subcontinent. They are mostly descendants of the original indentured workers brought by the British, the Dutch and the French during colonial times...

s, people with roots in the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

who reside in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

, were more receptive of the bikini than people of their original homeland.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the one-piece made a big comeback. In France, Réard's company folded in 1988, four years after his death. By that year the bikini made up nearly 20% of swimsuit sales, more than any other model in the US. As skin cancer

Skin cancer

Skin neoplasms are skin growths with differing causes and varying degrees of malignancy. The three most common malignant skin cancers are basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer, and melanoma, each of which is named after the type of skin cell from which it arises...

awareness grew and a simpler aesthetic defined fashion in the 1990s, sales of the skimpy bikini decreased dramatically. The new swimwear code was epitomized by surf star Malia Jones

Malia Jones

Malia Jones is a model and surfer.- Life and career :Jones was born in Loma Linda, California, although she returned to Kailua, Hawaii, at the age of two. Jones is of Hawaiian, Spanish-Filipino, German and English descent . She began to surf competitively in her early teens, and at age 15 won the...

, who appeared on the June 1997 cover of Shape Magazine
Shape Magazine
Shape Magazine is a monthly English language fitness magazine started by Weider Publications in 1981, founded by Christine MacIntyre and became the #1 women's fitness magazine...

wearing a halter top two-piece for rough water. After the 90s, however, the bikini came back again. US market research company NPD Group

NPD Group

reported that sales of two-piece swimsuits nationwide jumped 80% in two years. In the 1970s and 80s, bikinis became briefer with the string bikini. According to Beth Dincuff Charleston, research associate at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The bikini represents a social leap involving body consciousness, moral concerns, and sexual attitudes." According to Gina Bellafonte of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, actresses in action film

Action film

Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

s like Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is a 2003 American action comedy film. It is the sequel to 2000's Charlie's Angels. It opened in the United States on June 27, 2003, and was number one at the box office for that weekend and made a worldwide total of $259.2 million.The cast again includes Cameron...

and Blue Crush
Blue Crush
Blue Crush is a 2002 surfer film directed by John Stockwell and based on the Outside magazine article "Life's Swell" by Susan Orlean. Starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Sanoe Lake, and Mika Boorem, it tells the story of three friends who have one passion: living the ultimate dream of...

have made the two-piece "the millennial equivalent of the power suit." PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...

used celebrities like Pamela Anderson

Pamela Anderson

Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...

, Traci Bingham

Traci Bingham

Traci Bingham is an American actress, model and television personality who is best known for playing Jordan Tate on the television series Baywatch between 1996 and 1998.-Personal life:...

and Alicia Mayer

Alicia Mayer

Alicia Mayer is a model and actress from the Philippines. She was one of the hosts of the longest noon-time variety show, Eat Bulaga!. She was the Cover Girl of FHM 2003...

wearing a bikini made of iceberg-lettuce for an advertisement campaign to promote vegetarianism

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...

. A protester from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

used a bikini as a message board against a New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

visit by Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The "-kini family" (as dubbed by author William Safire

William Safire

William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist and presidential speechwriter....

), including the "-ini sisters" (as dubbed by designer Anne Cole) has grown to include a large number of subsequent variations, often with a hilarious lexicon — string bikini, monokini

Monokini

A monokini, sometimes referred to as a unikini, is a woman's one-piece garment comprising only the lower half of a bikini, leaving the breasts uncovered...

or numokini (top part missing), seekini (transparent bikini), tankini

Tankini

The tankini is a bathing suit combining a tank top, mostly made of spandex-and-cotton or Lycra-and-nylon, and a bikini bottom introduced in the late 1990s. This type of swimwear is considered by some to provide modesty closer to a one piece suit with the convenience of a two piece suit, as the...

(tank top, bikini bottom), camikini (camisole

Camisole

A camisole is a sleeveless undergarment for women, normally extending to the waist. The camisole is usually made of satin, nylon, or cotton.- Historical definition :...

top and bikini bottom), hikini, thong

Thong (clothing)

The thong is a garment generally worn as either underwear or as a swimsuit in many industrialized societies around the world. It may also be worn for traditional ceremonies or competitions such as sumo wrestling...

, slingshot, minimini, teardrop, and micro. In just one major fashion show in 1985, there were two-piece suits with cropped tank tops

Crop top

A crop top is a T-shirt or blouse with the lower part cut off, showing of some of the abdomen. The half shirt is a kind of shirt that is cut off from the bottom of the chest....

instead of the usual skimpy bandeaux, suits that are bikinis in front and one-piece behind, suspender straps

Suspenders

Suspenders or braces are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up trousers. Straps may be elasticated, either entirely or only at attachment ends and most straps are of woven cloth forming an X or Y shape at the back. Braces are typically attached to trousers with buttons...

, ruffle

Ruffle

In sewing and dressmaking, a ruffle, frill, or furbelow is a strip of fabric, lace or ribbon tightly gathered or pleated on one edge and applied to a garment, bedding, or other textile as a form of trimming...

s, and daring, navel-baring cutouts. To meet the fast changing tastes, some of the manufacturers have made a business out of making made-to-order bikinis in around seven minutes. The world's most expensive bikini was designed in February 2006 by Susan Rosen. The bikini, made up of over 150 carats (30 g) of flawless diamonds, was worth a massive £20 million.

The "body ideal"

In the 1960s Emily Post decreed, "(A bikini) is for perfect figures only, and for the very young." In The Bikini Book by Kelly Killoren Bensimon

Kelly Killoren Bensimon

Kelly Killoren Bensimon is an author, jewelry designer, former model, and former editor of Elle Accessories. She appeared on Bravo The Real Housewives of New York City seasons 2-4.-Early life:...

, responding to a question on who should not wear a bikini, swimwear designer Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali is a New York-based fashion designer born in 1945. She is best known for the "sleeping bag" coat, "parachute pants" made from silk parachutes, and versatile multi-use pieces. She designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn by Farah Fawcett in the iconic 1976 Charlie's Angels poster....

says, "Anyone with a tummy." Since then, a number of bikini designers including Malia Mills have encouraged women of all ages and body types to take up the style. The 1970s saw the rise of the lean ideal of female body and figures like Cheryl Tiegs

Cheryl Tiegs

Cheryl Rae Tiegs is an American model and actress.- Early years :Tiegs was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota but raised in Alhambra, California, and she graduated from Alhambra High School in 1965. She also attended the California State University, Los Angeles and became a little sister to the Sigma...

possessed the figure that remains in vogue today. The fitness boom of the 1980s led to one of the biggest leaps in the evolution of the bikini. According to swimwear designer Malia Mills, "The leg line became superhigh, the front was superlow, and the straps were superthin." Women's magazines used terms like "Bikini Belly", workout programs were launched to develop a "bikini-worthy body", while the tiny "fitness-bikinis" made of lycra were launched to cater to the hardbodied ideal. The ideal was carried further by models like Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson is an Australian model, actress, and businesswoman nicknamed "The Body". She is perhaps best known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue beginning in the 1980s...

, featured six times on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

. In one section of the Bikini Book, professional beach volleyballer Gabrielle Reece

Gabrielle Reece

Gabrielle Allyse Reece is an American professional volleyball player, sports announcer, fashion model and actress.-Early life:...

, who competes in a bikini, says that "confidence" alone can make a bikini sexy. Faced with sexpot supermodels and the cult of body consciousness, a shift away from the bikini remains, offering passive resistance to the concept that "if you've got it, you have to flaunt it".

Cultural controversies

In 1996, when the Miss World contest was held in Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

, India, dozens of Indian groups opposed the event claiming that the contest degraded women by featuring them in bikinis. Social activist Subhashini Ali commented, "It's not an IQ test. Neither is it a charity show. It's a beauty contest in which these things have been added on as sops." The protests were so intense that the organizers were finally compelled to shift the venue of the "Swimsuit Round" to Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....

. Afghan Miss Earth

Miss Earth

Miss Earth is an annual international beauty pageant promoting environmental awareness. Miss Earth is also one of the most publicized beauty contests in the world....

2003 contestant Vida Samadzai

Vida Samadzai

Vida Samadzai is Miss Afghanistan 2003. Although, the Republic of Afghanistan never recognized Samadzai as Miss Afghanistan...

(born in Afghanistan, raised in USA and living in India) was severely condemned by the both the Afghan authority and community. The Afghan Supreme Court

Afghan Supreme Court

Stera Mahkama or the Afghan Supreme Court is the court of last resort in Afghanistan. It was created by the Constitution of Afghanistan, which was approved on January 4, 2004...

, banning such contests, said that appearing naked in beauty contests is totally un-Islamic, and is against Afghan tradition, human honour and dignity. Afghan women affairs minister, Habiba Sarabi

Habiba Sarabi

Dr. Habiba Sarabi is a hematologist, politician, and reformer of the post-Taliban reconstruction of Afghanistan. In 2005, she was appointed as governor of Bamyan Province by President Hamid Karzai, becoming the first woman to ever be a governor of any province in the country...

, said her semi-naked appearance "is not women's freedom but in my opinion is to entertain men". Afghanistan's embassy in Washington DC declared that claims by Afghan American

Afghan American

An Afghan American refers to an American with heritage or origins in Afghanistan.-History and population:Afghan Americans have a long history of immigrating to the United States, as they may have arrived as early as the 1920s...

Samadzai to represent Afghanistan is baseless. Samadzai, the second woman to be crowned Miss Afghanistan after Zohra Daoud

Zohra Daoud

Zohra Yousuf Daoud is a former Afghan TV celebrity and model now a citizen of United States. In December 1972 Dawoud became the first and only woman to this date ever to be crowned Miss Afghanistan, months before a bloodless coup forced King Zahir Shah into exile...

's crowing in 1972, received a number of death threats and had to be under the protection of FBI for three months. She said she was bit uncomfortable wearing the skimpy "70s style red bikini", and was aware of the risks involved. Bikini related wardrobe malfunction

Wardrobe malfunction

A wardrobe malfunction is a euphemism for accidental exposure of intimate parts. It is different from flashing, as the latter implies a deliberate exposure...

s including wedgie

Wedgie

A wedgie occurs when a person's underwear or other garments are wedged between the buttocks. While a wedgie can be created naturally, the term is usually associated with a prank or as a form of bullying...

s, whale tail

Whale tail

Whale tail is the Y-shaped waistband of a thong or g-string when visible above the waistline of low-rise jeans, shorts, or a skirt that resembles a whale's tail. Intentionally or unintentionally, a whale tail is exposed above the trousers mostly when sitting or bending, or even while standing...

s or bikini tops falling off have also stirred controversies. In April 2004, a bikini line with images of Buddha

Buddha

In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...

printed on it was withdrawn by Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie and beauty products. It is the largest segment of publicly-traded Limited Brands with sales of over US$5 billion and an operating income of $1 billion in 2006...

, the manufacturer, in the face of protest by followers of Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

. Buddhists were upset again when organizers of Miss Universe

Miss Universe

Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest that is run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers....

2005 shot photographs of contestants in bikini in front of Buddhist religious sites.

Health aspects

Alongside controversies about the body ideal projected by the bikini and various cultural issues, there also is a concern about excess exposure of the skin to sun and the health hazards involved.

External links

"Bikini Timeline", Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
Bikini Science -- A Comprehensive History of the Bikini and Species of Swimwear
Cole of California and history of the bikini

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.