Bikinis History: The Bikini Swimsuit Comes of Age

On the Fifth of July, 1946, the bikini swimsuit was introduced for the first time, four days after a successful postwar nuclear bomb test at Bikini Atoll.

While there is evidence of bikini-like fashion worn by ancient civilizations, the modern two-piece swimsuit made its first appearance after the end of the Second World War. While swimsuits for women had gradually become less conservative during the first half of the Twentieth Century, wartime fabric rationing forced designers to remove excess material, which resulted in more form-fitting and figure-enhancing swimwear that had less panels concealing a woman’s body. 

Who Invented The Bikini?

A minimalist two-piece swimsuit was first introduced by French fashion designer Jacque Hain in May of 1946. Named the Atome after the smallest particle of matter, the bottom half still covered the wearer’s naval.

Meanwhile, Louis Reard was working on his own design, which used even less material. Reard hired exotic nude dancer Micheline Bernardini from the Casino de Paris to model his creation, since he was unable to convince any of his usual go-to models to wear it.

He called a press conference at the Piscine Molitor in Paris on July 5th, 1946, where he stated that “like the atom bomb detonated at Bikini Atoll, the bikini swimsuit was equally small and devastating.”

Despite wide coverage in the press, the initial reaction by the general public was one of shock and dismay. Even in the 1950s, some magazines continued to disparage the bikini, with Modern Girl Magazine declaring ‘it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing.’ Yet despite conservative reaction from some circles, over the passing years, images of celebrities wearing bikinis eventually turned the two-piece swimsuit into a billion-dollar annual enterprise.