"And on the beach you'll see the girls in their bikinis As cute as ever but they never get 'em wet… " - Nat King Cole
A postally unused cartolina postale that was published by Garami of Milan. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Italy.
The Bikini
The bikini was introduced in modern times by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946.
Réard was a car engineer, but by 1946 he was running his mother's lingerie business in Paris. Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume.
It comprised two pieces, the lower large enough to cover its wearer's navel.
Bikini Atoll
Réard named his swimsuit the 'bikini', taking the name from Bikini Atoll where the testing of the new atomic bomb was taking place that summer.
The Atoll's inhabitants were forced off the island prior to the testing, and high radiation levels mean that the Atoll remains uninhabited to this day.
The Launch of the Bikini
Réard found that no model was prepared to wear his bikini, so he hired 19-year-old nude dancer Micheline Bernardini to model it at the Molitor swimming pool in Paris for the unveiling in 1946.
Micheline received more than 50,000 fan letters after photos of her were published wearing the new style. However there was also criticism from people who thought the bikini was too revealing and sexual.
The bikini first went on sale on the 5th. July 1946, and after a slow start, soon became the most popular beachwear for women across the globe, with the bottom half becoming much smaller than its original size, along with the top half.
Early Roman Bikinis
The bikini's first appearance was long before the 1940's.
Bikini Girls are featured in a mosaic in the Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily, a large agricultural estate that was probably owned by a member of the Roman Senate or, possibly, Emperor Maximian (who was Roman emperor from 286 to 305).
The room is named after the mosaic and is referred to as the Sala delle Dieci Ragazze (“Room of the Ten Maidens”).
Of the ten women depicted in the mosaic, nine wear what look like two-piece bathing suits. The girls in the mosaic are engaged in sports; the “bikinis” are clearly intended as sportswear, not swimwear. The girls in the ancient Roman villa are engaged in a number of activities, such as long jumping with weights in their hands, throwing discus, running, and playing a form of handball.
Contrary to popular belief, women in the Roman Empire participated in sports shows. Upper-class women were granted some personal freedoms in the realms of entertainment and leisure, often frequenting bathhouses, racetracks, theaters, and even gladiator stadia with their husbands.
However, there were some rules. For example, women were not allowed to compete with men. Female public nudity was not welcome. The ancient “bikini” allowed women to exercise comfortably.
The bikini-style bottom was a wrapped loincloth made of cloth or leather. In Ancient Rome, it was called a subligaculum. The top part of the “bikini” worn by these girls consists of a breast band (called a strophium). These breast bands were often made of linen.
They may have been used to flatten big breasts by being wrapped several times round the body, and sometimes they were padded to make them similar to contemporary push-up bras.
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