About Brazilian Bikinis
Brazilian bikinis, the sexy swimsuits (also sometimes called French bikinis) for shapely young women that are now the norm on beaches the world over, have been marketed for more than 50 years. The Brazilian bikini owes its name, and some of its look, to World War II. As part of a wartime rationing effort, the U.S. government called for a reduction in fabric use, prompting swimwear designers to come up with a two-piece swimsuit with a bare midriff for women. One designer wanted to outdo the others and came up with a particularly risque two-piece. He unveiled it just four days after the U.S. government exploded an atomic bomb on the Bikini Atoll, and lifted the name as a publicity gimmick. And thus was born the Brazilian bikini, which to this day remains the swimsuit of choice for shapely young women everywhere. Does this Spark an idea?
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Origins
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The Brazilian bikini was designed by French engineer Louis Reard, who, in the early 1940s, wanted to create a real eye-opening swimsuit for women. The midriff had just become bared after the U.S. government called for a 10 percent reduction in the fabric used for women's swimwear as part of a wartime rationing effort. Reard took this as his cue and implemented a significantly more dramatic reduction in fabric use, utilizing just 30 square inches of fabric, basically just a bra top and two triangles on the bottom. His inspiration was said to be the scantily clad women of Brazil's Amazon tribes, hence the name.
Less than a week before he was to unveil his daring new creation in Paris, the U.S. government exploded an atom bomb on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Reard also wanted to create an "explosion" in the fashion industry, so he lifted the name, unveiling the Brazilian bikini on July 5, 1945, in Paris. The bikini was so small that no self-respecting Parisian models would dare wear it, particularly not on the runway, in full view of the fashion photographers. So Reard hired a nude dancer named Micheline Bernardini. According to the BrazilianBikini.org website, "Bernardini was not what you'd call a classic beauty, but after photos of her in a reclining pose hit the press, she was swamped with fan mail, close to 50,000 letters."
Controversy
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The bikini soon became a sensation--mostly in the negative sense. Spain, Portugal and Italy, where the Catholic Church is especially powerful, banned the skimpy swimsuit. Here in the United States, movie producers were pressured to keep it out of movies. According to BrazilianBikini.org, "One writer said it's a 'two piece bathing which reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name.'"
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The Bikini Goes Mainstream
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The Puritanical 1950s eventually gave way to the anything-goes 1960s, and even before the great counterculture revolution that occurred in the second half of that decade, mainstream America's morals loosened up. The burgeoning surf culture put the beach in everyone's consciousness. Singer Bryan Hyland immortalized the bikini in his hit song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." Hollywood produced a wave of "beach flicks" like Gidget and the Beach Party series, with former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and singer Frankie Avalon. Both featured liberal doses of women dancing in bikinis. Ursula Andress brought further fame, and exposure, to the bikini when she emerged from the sea wearing a white bikini in the 1962 James Bond film "Dr. No." Playboy magazine featured its first bikini cover that same year, and in 1964, Sports Illustrated came out with its first bikini cover. Before long, Brazilian bikinis became an increasingly common sight on U.S. beaches.
Further Advances
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The bikini didn't just become increasingly common as the 1970s turned into the 1980s, but also became smaller and smaller. The string bikini was introduced during this period, consisting of four triangles--two on top for the breasts, and two on the bottom--hitched together by string. An even more daring variant was the thong bikini, in which the rear "triangle" is replaced by a mere string, exposing the buttocks. In the mid-2000s yet another variant came along, the micro bikini, with just a thin patch of cloth on the bottom. The micro bikini's arrival coincided with the trend among young women to completely shave off, or remove by "Brazilian wax" treatment, all of their pubic hair.
The Brazilian Bikini Today
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Today, the Brazilian bikini is more popular than ever. It's firmly ingrained into the mainstream, as evidenced by the fact that during the 1990s even staid beauty pageants like Miss America and Miss Universe decided to allow their contestants to wear bikinis while modeling swimwear (in the past, only one-pieces were allowed). In 1994, the U.S. Olympic Committee made the bikini the official uniform of women's beach volleyball. The Brazilian bikini also is a big business, with consumer spending exceeding $800 million a year, according to the NPD Group, a national research and information firm.
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References
- Photo Credit Photo by Thomas K. Arnold
