Bikini The Beautiful
The first recorded history of women wearing two-piece garments dates back earlier than 1400 B.C. The "Bikini Girls" mosaic, discovered during the excavation of the Villa del Casale of Piazza Armerina, Depicts eight active women each wearing a red bikini. Once thought to represent a contest of beauty is now viewed as a female sports competition.
In 1946, soon after World War II, French fashion and costume designer, Jacques Heim introduced the modern world to the Atome. A small two-piece garment named after the smallest piece of matter known to man.
In July of 1947, French engineer Louis Reard released a smaller two-piece made from only 30 inches of fabric. He named this swimsuit after Bikini Atoll, a Pacific Ocean site famous for hosting the first nuclear weapon test since trinity in 1945 and the first detonation of an atomic bomb since Nagasaki. Reard envisioned the release of his micro swimsuit as an explosion that would split the Atome.
Unable to find a Paris model willing to wear his risque two-piece. Louis Reard hired Micheline Bernardini, a 19-year-old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris, who debuted the bikini at a poolside photoshoot in the center of Paris.
In the early 1950s, European beeches start banning the navel revealing swimsuit. The bikini also gets banned from worldwide beauty pageants, and the Vatican deems it sinful
Seventeen-year-old French actress Brigitte Bardot wears a Bikini in the 1952 french film "Manina, the Girl in the bikini. Bardot was widely credited for popularizing the Bikini in Europe and then America in 1958 when the film bypassed U.S. regulations against exposed midriffs.
The June 1962 edition of playboy was the first time a bikini appeared on its cover. The focal point is a black bikini bottom resting gently on a model's lower pelvis. Playmate of the month for June was American actress and model Marrisa Mathes.
May 8th, 1963, in the James Bond thriller Dr. No, German-Swiss actress Ursula Andres emerges from the Caribian Sea, singing in her iconic white bikini. The voice you hear when Andress sings "Underneath The Mango Tree," belongs to British actress Diana Coupland.
Editor Andre Laguerre of Sports Illustrated created the first Swimsuit Issue in 1964. To help fill the winter editions, Andres persuaded fashion reporter Jule Campbell to photograph women in bikinis on the island of Cozumel. Babbette March was the Cover model in the first edition.
In the 1966 film "One Millon Years BC" Raquel Welch and her doeskin bikini become the iconic poster that transforms her into an international sex symbol. The poster becomes a best seller and is a crucial component in Andy Dufrane's great escape
Credits
The history of the bikini, by CBS News.
The History of the Bikini, by Time.
A scandalous, two-piece history of the bikini, by The Wasington Post
The History of the Bikini, By Elle