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The Bikini Turns 60 (or, 3,607)
At the risk of crossing some strange and dangerous boundary into 50’s-era sexism and incurring the wrath of feminists, we’d like to delicately celebrate the “invention” of the modern bikini swimsuit. Last Wednesday was the 60th birthday of the famed two-piece.
Though it was “invented” by the French in 1946, the bikini has actually been around, as far as archaeologists can tell, since 1600 B.C. at the earliest. There are actually cave paintings from that far back showing women prancing around in bikinis, perhaps even giggling and popping each other with wet towels, maybe even rubbing themselves down with baby oil, listening to Ricky Nelson records and forgetting that anyone’s watching as they shimmy-shimmy. Err…maybe our imaginations should sit this one out. But the Roman girls were into to it, too, as we can tell by paintings they left behind.
Ancient history aside, though, the bikini was officially “invented,” for modern Western purposes, by two French designers – Messieurs Louis Reard & Jacques Heim – in 1946. Originally named “Le Atome” (“The Atom”) by Heim for its small size – the atom was the smallest things people could think of back then – it was later renamed “Le Bikini” by Reard after the U.S. tested a nuclear bomb on the Bikini Reef in the South Pacific. It was hoped that the swimsuit would have the same effect on fashion as the bomb had on the world (minus the part about mass destruction and death).
The intended result took place, of course. The bikini was officially introduced to the world at a Paris fashion show on July 5, 1946, when French model Micheline Bernardini strutted down the runway showing more skin than anyone had ever seen in the fashion world, changing the lives of young girls forever. After that, beaches would never be the same.
All we can say is, merci France.
*Images courtesy of Wikipedia.
