THE BIKINI

“A bikini is not a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring”

Louis Réard had the idea for what we now consider a modern bikini when he was on a beach in St. Tropez in 1946 and witnessed women rolling down their high waisted swimsuit bottoms to achieve better tan lines. His design was what would now be classified as a “string bikini”, consisting of four pieces of fabric cut into triangles and held together by string to cover the breasts, pelvis and bottom.

No model would agree to wear the bikini, deeming it indecently small, so Louis Réard hired an exotic dancer named Micheline Bernardini to model the bikini at the Piscine Molitor in July 1946. The Bikini was the first piece of women’s swimwear to ever show a woman’s belly button. 

The public was resistant at first to Louis Réard’s daring new design and it even became outlawed on public beaches in many countries. However, as we now know Louis Réard was well ahead of his time and now the bikini is the standard word to describe any two-piece swimsuit.