FRANCE - NOVEMBER 02/ Michele BERNARDINI, who has just won the prize for the prettiest 1946 swimmer of the Molitor swimming pool, showing off on July 5, 1946, the first bikini, created by the fashion designer Louis REARD. (Getty Images)
The Space Race, the Race to Fly, and the Race for the 4-minute mile, all pale in aesthetic comparison to the race for the first bikini. Actually, the term bikini did not exist prior to the summer of 1946. It took a French designer and former engineer named Louis Réard to unlock the previously forbidden territory of the woman’s belly button.
While many people might know of Réard, fewer know of his rival Jacques Heim who also sought to introduce the woman’s bathing suit of scandalous proportions. Coming out of World War II, the pair raced amidst a global shortage of material to go down in the annals of women’s swimwear. Here’s the history of the Bikini and the uncovering of the belly button heard around the world.
Bernardini and Réard made history on a summer day in Paris.
A Very Brief History Of Women’s Swimwear
Before Heim and Réard locked horns in the race for skin-revealing swimwear, the history of women’s swimsuits reads positively medieval. Victorians mostly classified tanning as bohemian, below them, and only dipped their toes by enshrouding themselves in “bathing machines” that allowed them to take in the sun in complete privacy.
In the early part of the 20th-century, swimsuit police would patrol beaches armed with rulers to measure decency in inches above the knee. Freedom of expression received a swift squelching, especially if it involved the baring of a woman’s skin.
1 July 1961, Bikinis make their way state side. commons.wikimedia.org
A Line In The Sand
Eventually, Hollywood celebrities of the ‘40s started to push boundaries but never dared to cross one verboten line. Kelly Killoren Bensimon, author of the “The Bikini Book,” explained, “We had seen Jayne Mansfield and a lot of other actresses wearing two-piece bathing suits. But never with the navel showing.” That area she dubbed the “zone of contention.” Naturally, it would be the French who dared to venture into such taboo waters.
There was no stopping the bikini once it was out of the box.
The Atomic Bikini Race
Coming out of the end of WWII, unbeknownst to the world, Réard and Heim sped to design the first navel exposing swimsuits for women. Ironically, the worldwide fabric shortage helped inspire their ever-shrinking designs.
Heim first claimed success with his creation, dubbed the “Atom” in obvious reference to its size. However, Réard bested his rival with both volume and creativity.
1963 Actors Ursula Andress and Sean Connery in a scene from Dr. No. Getty Images
How Small Can You Go
The man who went down in tiny weeny history called his invention the “Bikini” after the Bikini Atoll where atomic tests were being conducted at the same time. Not only did Réard stick it to his competitor with his rather clever name, but he also wielded the power of photos and a beautiful woman to devastating effect. Perhaps we can credit his time working in his mother’s lingerie shop but let’s not analyze that fact too deeply.
At a Parisian pool, Réard unveiled his paradigm-shifting bikini with the only model willing to wear it: Micheline Bernardini, a then 19-year-old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. Together they snapped the photo that changed the world and revealed the previously unknown region known as a woman’s belly button. It was a sight unheard of in the wild before that historic moment in 1946.
The bikini that helped set the standard.
A Whole New World
That thimble full of material eventually made its way from the clothing-optional beaches of Europe to America, but it was a long road. Many places in America revolted by banning bikinis and denouncing the look with the strongest language possible, which often included the possibility of burning in hell.
Brigitte Bardot became the first to take the public leap of teeny tiny in 1952 with “The Girl in the Bikini,” which was exactly what it sounds like. Undoubtedly, Ursula Andress ensured we’d all never return to a world including beach police, thanks to her white bikini in “Dr. No.” That iconic walk out of the water occurred just over 15 years after Réard sent us down a path of maximum exposure.
