It was the summer of 1946, the place: the vast wastes of the Pacific. A mighty armada of military personnel and scientists gathered around a cluster of tiny islands and coral reefs. They were about to unleash something terrifying: the first planned atomic test, named Operation Crossroads. The location chosen, as far away from human beings as possible, was a small island group called the Bikini Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands. These pin-prick islands thrusting their head just above the western Pacific could have been on the far side of the moon as far as most people were concerned. But they would soon become a household word. One reason was the atomic test, the other, although notably less violent, would send even greater tremors throughout the world than the 23-kiloton bomb exploded on July 1, 1946. In one of the more enjoyable examples of the Law of Unexpected Consequences, the result of this test was the increased popularity of a very skimpy type of clothing called the Bikini. How did a cutting-edge weapon of mass destruction become linked with popular beach wear? The story begins in that first post-war summer.
Victor Gamma explains.
Micheline Bernardini wearing a bikini in 1946. Source: Hulton Archive, here.
Ever since Hiroshima, atomic energy had intrigued the general public and produced far-reaching cultural effects as well. In the United States, the Atomic Cafe opened in Los Angeles that year. Not long afterward, Lyle Griffin would found “Atomic Records” as a label. France would have its own unique reaction: a daring new line of swimwear. With this design the redoubtable French recaptured the lead in the post-war fashion industry while barely missing a beat. The product they unleashed on the world would have a more far-reaching impact than a cafe in California.
The bikini was the latest result of the ultimate product of historical processes reaching back generations. The twentieth century could be called the Age of the Plummeting hem line. From the turn-of-the century, when bathing gowns and bathing machines dominated the scene without a leg showing, to the 1940’s two-piece, Inch by inch the women’s beachwear shrunk until by the 1940s two piece outfits that exposed the midriff were well established. The hips, back and breast were still well-covered and it was still unacceptable for women to expose their belly button in public. World War II sped up the trend towards greater skimpiness. War-time shortages of fabrics led to rationing. On March 8, 1942 the United States War Production Board issued Regulation L-85 which ordered the swimwear industry to reduce by 10% the amount of fabric for women. The swimwear industry responded with a number of changes. Basically they became less frilly, more functional and in the process, exposed more skin, including two-piece suits with bare midriffs. In the United States, geographically the war was a distant event Americans only read or heard about. Thus, unlike in war-torn Europe, Americans were free to indulge their favorite habits, such as enjoying a day at the beach. American fashion designers had done their patriotic best to meet war-time shortages by removing some superfluous material. But those worn in the US were quite modest compared to the bombshell French designers were about to drop.
In 1946, after years of shortages and air raid sirens, Europeans looked forward to the first peace-time summer in 6 years. That and the reality of conditions in France led many to seek distractions. The economy was in shambles, citizens felt the bite of food shortages and much of decaying buildings in Paris showed the results of years of neglect. More than anything, the war-weary French yearned to enjoy sunny days at the traditional vacation spots. For many this meant packing up the family and heading to the beach. These had been closed for much of the war. In the spirit of healthy patriotic capitalism, some saw a way to help out and make money at the same time. Said one fashion designer, “In 1946 France had just come out of the war and people needed to live again - I felt I had to design something that would make people understand that life can start over and be beautiful.” Men like this were busy at their design desks focusing on ideas that would match the liberated mood of the season. Among these were a former auto engineer named Louis Réard and clothing designer Jacques Heim.
An Unlikely Connection
The fashion industry thrives on novelty and the changing of seasons. Knowing this, Réard and Heim both raced to create a new swimwear for the fast approaching summer. Partly influenced by on-going shortages of material caused by the recent World War, both were intent on pushing the limits on size. Both also shared the current obsession with atomic energy. Heim, who owned a beach-supply shop on the French Riviera, introduced a two-piece swimwear in May, 1946. This was actually a re-launching of an earlier design influenced by Tahitian dancers. He called his creation “The Atom” after the smallest known particle of matter. It featured a bottom that covered the navel, even if barely. Heim hired skywriters to fly over the most popular beaches declaring the “Atom:the world’s smallest bathing suit.”
Unfortunately for Heim, his ambition and talent was shared by Réard. He followed Heim’s progress with the attention of a shark and decided to use his product and marketing as a launch pad for his own creation. Despite his engineering background, he found himself running his mother’s lingerie shop by the 1940s. A natural competitor, Heim’s creation pushed him to do something even more attention-getting. The observant engineer noticed women at the beach at St. Tropez rolling up the edges of their swimwear to get more tan. In what would be a fortuitous turn of events, his mother’s shop also served as the shoe shop for the famous cabaret Les Folies bergère. Here he most likely saw costumes very similar to his own creation. Some dancers wore outfits using as little as 30 inches of fabric consisting of a bra and two inverted triangles. All of this inspired the intrepid engineer to surpass Heim. Why couldn’t he take what was basically a cabaret outfit and merchandise it for use in a mainstream setting? He rushed to his design desk and trimmed material off the bottom design. The result was a daring combination of halter top connected by a neck and back strap. The lower piece was simply two inverted triangles connected by a gstring. It was indeed smaller than Heim’s, using a mere 30 inches of fabric. The main difference between Réard and Heim’s design was that Réard challenged convention by exposing the navel and much of the buttocks. He promoted his creation as a direct challenge to Heim “smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world.” Réard chose a newspaper pattern for his new swimwear confident that it would be newsworthy. It was also a shameless ploy to win the favor of the journalist community.
Next came the task of choosing an appropriate name. What would resonate with the public? The news-savvy engineer knew that the attention of all France was riveted on the atomic tests taking place that summer. Réard could thank Operation Crossroads for choosing the location they did. They could have easily selected a nearby island such as Allinglaplap. As it was, the site chosen contained just the perfect combination of syllables. As the engineer-turned-fashion icon later explained “At that time everybody spoke of the island of Bikini in the pacific, enchanted, tiny, fine sand, a paradise. The idea came to me to make a swimsuit tiny like that island.” More likely, Réard simply wanted to beat Heim in the competition. Réard’s creative genius made the connection between two seemingly unrelated things: his daring swimwear and the current atomic tests. With the natural instincts of a Madison Avenue advertising talent, he put the two together: The new atomic age and a revolutionary new line of swimwear. Next, he chose a very attention-getting slogan - 'The Bikini will be explosive.’ Two weeks after the Able atomic bomb test, Réard registered the name Bikini for his latest swimwear creations. What the wily Frenchman was in effect saying was that his design was as momentous an occasion as the Atomic Bomb. In his words, “Like the bomb, the bikini is small but devastating.”
Search for a Model
Of course, the full effect could not be appreciated without someone to wear it for the public. He especially needed models who specialized in swimwear. Since the design would be considered scandalous, this took some doing. His string two-piece left very little to the imagination. Essentially, the model would be appearing semi-naked in public. None of the usual models were willing to wear his ‘bikini’ let alone waltz around in public in a skimpy two-piece. Réard, in fact, was forced to find a strip-tease dancer. Fortunately for Réard there were dancers of the other type: someone not shy about exposure in public. In a fortuitous circumstance, Réard’s shop was located not too distant from the Casino de Paris. This was a well-established music hall that attracted patrons from all over the world for generations. Famed for the lavish costumes, the Casino dancers wore a wild diversity of costumes including some resembling Réard’s later bikini. The Casino de Paris also sometimes featured topless and nude dancing. Among the dancers in 1946 was an 18-year old strip-dancer named Micheline Bernardini. When Réard offered to hire her to model his new two-piece, she readily agreed. She donned the string two-piece bathing attire and stepped into history.
Public Exposure
Next Réard arranged a press conference to take place as an outdoor fashion show at the Piscine Molitor, a popular public swimming pool in Paris. The date was July 5, 1946, five days after the Atomic detonation at Bikini Atoll. At the event she posed for a number of photographs. Reard arranged a press conference. Bernardini posed and held a matchbox, indicating that the entire outfit could fit in the tiny container. Never one to miss a beat, Réard kept repeating his advertising slogan; "Bikini--smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world."
That summer’s fashion wars waxed hot the following weeks as Heim and Réard vied with each other to capture the market. Réard hired his own skywriters to specifically counter Heim’s claim, beachgoers looked up to see "smaller than the smallest swimming suit in the world.” The merciless engineer continued his campaign to overshadow Heim by proclaiming that he had “split the atom.” Sadly for Heim, his competitor was a natural showman and, although he was first and initially sold more, it was Réard’s name bikini that stuck.
Reaction
The reaction was indeed explosive. Like it or hate it - it could not be ignored. “Four triangles of nothing,” asserted one newspaper. Heim and Réard’s instincts proved correct. France, buoyed by recent liberation and excited to enjoy life again (a French specialty), fixed its attention on the latest fashion breakthrough. Some in the press remarked that the bikini design must have been inspired by the atomic tests because the wearer looked like a survivor from a nuclear blast, whose clothes were reduced to tatters. Others speculated that the primitive islanders living near the blast influenced the simplicity of the design. Whatever the press commentary, much of the public loved the daring new outfit. The delighted Réard was deluged by fan mail to the tune of 50,000 within a short-time of the event at Piscine Molitor. The obscure Miss Bernardini also became something of a celebrity, receiving at least 500,000 fan letters. Réard would continue hammering his message with an advertising campaign that included the slogan “It’s not a genuine bikini unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.” The witty engineer followed up with such descriptions of this design that it "reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." Another gem from the quotable designer was that the bikini had "just enough to protect the property without spoiling the view."
Despite the sensationalism generated by the press, as well the pronouncements of cultural spokespersons such as Diana Vreeland: “The bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb,” mainstream life at the beach continued to reflect more conservative dress until the 1960s. Except for the jet-set that adopted the latest Paris fashions and took them to their favorite hot place, international sales were disappointing. Other than a core of enthusiastic supporters and women of the more daring type, the insubstantial design was too revealing for most people. Although by the 1930s women’s swimwear displayed the entire leg, midriff and had a plunging neckline, Réard’s design pushed well beyond those limits. "I can't think of any situation in the thousand years before the 1960s when it was acceptable to show the navel, " said Kevin Jones, a curator and fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. “It was avant-garde; it was ahead of its time,” said Miss Rayer, co-author of a book on the bikini’s history. “In that epoch, we were still puritan.”
Legacy
When the bikini began to appear on the beaches, it was banned almost everywhere. Citations were given in Italy for wearing a bikini as late as 1957. In more progressive nations, the bikini began to gain traction, so promoters attempted to endorse it. But time was on the side of the bikini. They, of course, dominate most beaches today. By the 2000s the bikini industry generated over $800 million yearly. By the time Réard died in 1984, bikinis would amount to as much as 20% of the swimwear market. But more than introducing a popular product, Réard’s creation reflected changing standards. What Réard essentially did was to mainstream a mode of dress that had up to that point been relegated to places of ill-repute. In 2007 Le Figaro trumpeted “For women, wearing a bikini signaled a kind of second liberation…It was … a celebration of freedom and a return to the joys of life.” Since Réard’s time the bikini and swimwear have continued to evolve, as have cultural attitudes about issues related to femininity and modesty. In the future, innovation, creativity and the continuous quest to push the boundaries of acceptability are sure to provide new expressions.
What do you think of the history of the bikini? Let us know below.
Now read Victor’s series on how the US misjudged Fidel Castro here.
Bibliography
Rubin, Alissa J. “From Bikinis to Burkinis, Regulating What women Wear.” The New York Times, August 27, 2016.
From Bikinis to Burkinis, Regulating What Women Wear - The New York Times
Hendrix, Steve. “You have this French man to thank - or chastise - for creating the modern bikini.” The Lily News, July 10, 2018.
You have this French man to thank — or chastise — for creating the modern bikini
“Man Who Invented the Bikini Bares his Thoughts.” The Dispatch, Nov. 5, 1974.
The Dispatch - Google News Archive Search
Stanton, Audrey. “The Scandalous History Of The Bikini.” The Good Trade, August 2, 2019.
The Scandalous History Of The Bikini — The Good Trade
Image fair use rationale: Educational. This photograph plays a fundamental part in the history of the bikini. It is essential to explain the history of the bikini in the post-war period.
