File photo: A woman wearing a Bikini
A number of us wear these skimpy clothings especially when it’s hot, by the beach or poolside and even sometimes repurpose the bikini tops as actual tops but some facts about the bikini and it’s history will shock you. I guarantee that. Check out 4 of them.
Bikinis were named after a nuclear bomb test
In May 1946, at the time of the modern bikini’s creation, the United States was testing hydrogen bombs in Bikini Atoll, and in these tests Louis Réard found inspiration for the name of his bombshell new clothing item. The engineer-slash-designer thought that his new design was just as shocking as the nuclear tests—and at the time, his assumptions were accurate.
Designers were fighting over the spotlight for the smallest bathing suit
French designer Jacques Heim called his two-piece bathing suit “Atome” and the marketing tagline was “the world’s smallest bathing suit”. Reard made a bigger splash with the launch of his bikini at Parisian swimming pool Piscine Molitor on July 5, 1946.
The big bang launch was almost sunk before it could happen because no model wanted to wear the tiny outfit, made from just 70 cms of cloth. The bikini, featuring a pattern of newsprint, was so small it could fit into a matchbox. But Reard managed to find a pretty 19-year-old Parisian showgirl, Micheline Bernardini, who was used to dancing in the nude, to model his outfit.
Wearing it was considered a sin by the Vatican
Young women sporting the skimpy suits in Spain and Italy scandalised older conservatives. Spain and Italy even banned the bikini from public beaches, and the Vatican declared it a sin to wear the outfit. It was the most daring young women who donned the two-piece, but by the 1950s, it had become a beach mainstay.
Several places still ban the wearing of bikinis
When the bikini was first introduced, countries like Italy, Portugal, and Spain prevented their citizens from wearing them. And though these countries have since lifted those bans, cities around the world still ban the provocative piece. Such places include Hvar, Croatia, where you can get fined for walking the streets in a swimsuit; the Maldives, where most public beaches are for one-piece suits only; and Ras al-Khaimah in United Arab Emirates, where swimwear is banned entirely.
Which of these facts are you shocked by?
