Wikipedia

Bikini

two-piece women's swimwear

A bikini is a type of swimsuit for women. It consists of two parts; pants and a bra top, leaving an uncovered area between the two. The bikini is an ancient invention, reinvented after the Second World War.

Woman in bikini

The bikini is perhaps the most popular female beachwear around the globe.

By the mid-2000s bikinis had become a US $811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company.[1] The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries.[2]

History

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The "Bikini girls" mosaic showing women exercising, first quarter of the 4th century AD.
Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily

Predecessors of the bikini date back to antiquity, in Çatalhöyük[3] and the Greco-Roman world.[4] Artwork dating back to the Diocletian period (286-305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaics on the floor.[5][6] The images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls",[7] exercising in clothing that would pass as bikinis today, are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles at the site.[8] Archeological finds, especially in Pompeii, show the Roman goddess Venus 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.[9]

By the early 1940s two-piece swimsuits were frequent on American beaches. Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner tried similar swimwear or beachwear.[10]

The modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer but by 1946 he was running his mother's lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergères in Paris.[11] Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume. It comprised two pieces, the bottom large enough to cover its wearer's navel. Réard named his swimsuit the "bikini", taking the name from the Bikini atoll, one of a series of islands in the South Pacific where testing on the new atomic bomb was occurring that summer.[12][13][14] He promoted it with the slogan "le bikini, la première bombe an-atomique".[15] This is a play on words: "anatomique" means "relating to anatomy". Réard could not find a model to wear his design. He ended up hiring Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris.[16] That bikini, with a g-string back, had 30 square inches (194 cm2) of cloth with newspaper type printed across. It introduced on July 5 at Piscine Molitor, a public pool in Paris.[17] Heim's design was the first worn on the beach, but the clothing was given its name by Réard.[5] The bikini became increasingly popular throughout the 1960s and 70s.

Images

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    The microskirt; a bikini bottom variation
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    Sports bikinis give extra support and protection for the breasts. German pole vaulter Floé Kühnert
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    A bandeau; a bikini top variation

Other websites

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References

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  1. ↑ Sylvia Rubin: Fashion shocker of '46: the naked belly button Archived 2012-03-07 at the Wayback Machine San Francisco Chronicle, 2006-07-02
  2. ↑ Lorna Edwards, "You've still got it, babe, The Age, 2006-06-03
  3. ↑ Prithvi Kumar Agrawala 1984. Goddessess in Ancient India, page 12, Abhinav Publications. ISBN 978-0-391-02960-6
  4. ↑ Peter J. James, I.J. Thorpe & Nick Thorpe 1994. Ancient Inventions, page 279, Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-40102-1
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Kathryn Westcott: The Bikini: Not a brief affair BBC News, 2006-06-05
  6. ↑ Villa Romana del Casale, Val di Noto
  7. ↑ Allen Guttmann 1991. Women's Sports: A History, page 38, Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-06957-1
  8. ↑ Villa Romana del Casale, World Heritage Sites Archived 2008-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Pompeian Households Archived 2016-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, Stoa Image Gallery Archived 2015-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, The Stoa Consortium Archived 2011-03-07 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ James Kitchling, Short history of bikinis and swimsuits Archived 2009-02-09 at the Wayback Machine, 3X24 News Magazine
  11. ↑ Adam Sage, "Happy birthday: the 'shocking and immoral' bikini hits 60[permanent dead link]", The Times, 2006-04-16
  12. ↑ Random history: Tiny Swimsuit That Rocked the World: A History of the Bikini Archived 2012-08-08 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ Paula Cocozza: A little piece of history", The Guardian, 2006-06-10
  14. ↑ The Bikini Turns 60 Archived 2016-09-09 at the Wayback Machine, 1946 to 2006: 60 Years of Bikini Bathing Beauties, Lilith E-Zine
  15. ↑ "Le Bikini… – Gatsby Online". www.gatsbyonline.com. Retrieved 2022-04-10.
  16. ↑ Rosebush, Judson. "Michele Bernadini: the first bikini". Bikini Science. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
  17. ↑ History Channel: Bikini Introduced, This Day in History, History Channel
 
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