Brigitte Bardot
In 1946, two Frenchmen, engineer Louis Réard, and fashion designer Jacques Heim, were in a strange competition in Paris.The challenge : make the smallest two-piece bathing suit for women...
But, given the mores of the time, an obstacle stands in this race with minimal dress : the navel ! In the 1940s, showing it was still considered obscene or forbidden.
In fact, many historians consider that Heim already won this race to the tiniest swimsuit in 1932, by creating his prototype called "The Atom" (pictured above).It was a two-piece somewhat similar to the model that will take the name "bikini" after World War II.
What inspired Louis Réard for his own version of the minimalist swimsuit was a phenomenon he had observed on the French beaches of that time. He had noticed that, in order to get a better tan, some women rolled the edges of their two-pice bathing suit, surreptitiously discovering their "scandalous" navel !
In his engineering head, Réard (pictured above) understood that this need for women to shorten their own bathing suits by rolling the edges, should lead to an adjustment in the making of the garment.
After all, like many scientific inventions, this is how the bikini was born. First, the observation of a problem, a need, a desire, or a questionable fact. Then, the imagination gets to work to find a solution. This solution then takes shape on the drawing board. And it is carried out with material means and a skin-fine that proceeds by trial and error.
Thus, in 1946, with more or less accuracy, Réard developed the bikini we know today : a top covering most of the breasts; a stocking, with a triangle at the front to hide the inner part, and at the back enough fabrics to cover more or less half of the buttocks.
Once his invention was made, Louis Réard planned to sell it, as he was also a businessman operating his mother's lingerie shop near the Folies Bergères in Paris. In order to attrack customers or buyers of his new product, the engineer had to show case it, market it and advertise it.
To do this, Réard was looking for a mannequin -an alive one- to make demonstrations in public. But his bikini was so daring for the manners of the time, that no one wanted to wear it.
Running out of volunteers, Réard takes great measures. To present his creation to the world, he hires a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris, Micheline Bernardini (pictured above).
On July 5, 1946, she caused a sensation by appearing, almost completely naked, at the Molitor Pool, in front of the public and photographers, in Réard's minimalist bathing suit ! An instant star, Bernardini has a multitude of admirers, especially among men. In the days following her audacious presentation, she received no less than 50 000 letters !
But Louis Réard is too far ahead of his time. His bikini is scandalous and he can't sell it. Worse, his competitor, Jacques Heim, was more successful in selling a more conservative two-piece bathing suit (like the one pictured above), revealing less of the female anatomy. However, the clientele remains quite marginal. It is limited to a small number of wealthy and sophisticated Higher-class Europeans.
For the bikini to return to store shelves, it will take a bang. And it is a young woman, many considered the most beautiful in the world, who will give this momentum, so desired by Réard, to take off and boost the sales of his invention hitherto sullied by the ordinary people.
Indeed, at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1953, the blonde and very beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot dazzled the world by posing in a very sexy bikini. Bardot launched a fashion that then spread to the adjacent beaches of Saint-Tropez, a town on the French Riviera that quickly became the bikini capital of the world.
Other movie and show business stars and pin-up girls will emulate Bardot in the 1950s. These resplendent and illustrious fans of the new bikini include : Esther Williams, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren.
But, in several American states, or European countries (such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, the bikini is banned. Wearing it is illegal. Violators can be fined. The Pope also condemns the wearing of the bikini.
And if, as we approach the 1960s, some magazines or newspapers are showing people in bikinis, these pictures are retouched or censored so that readers can't look at this outrageous navel that no one should see !
Here are some photos of bikini models of the 1950s on a grestest hit of the year 1953 : «Look at that Girl», by Guy Mitchell !
