Bikini forever
Updated: 2006-06-12 10:55
2006 Benetton bikini collection
The bikini, the most modern of swimsuits, celebrates its officially birthday
on July 5. This year it is 60 years old.
And it's just as popular as it ever was -- in fact, many styles inspired by
the bikini's first heyday, the 1960s, are once again in vogue this summer.
Actually a French engineer named Louis Reard invented the bikini, after he
observed women on the beach in St. Tropez hiking up the tops and bottoms of the
much-larger two-piece swim outfits that were worn then -- they were trying to
get a better tan.
This tiny little swimsuit, which exposed the belly and the navel, was
considered so outrageous that Reard couldn't get a model to wear it when he
debuted his creation at a fashion show on July 5, 1946. He had to get a nude
dancer to wear it instead.
Kelly Killoren Bensimon, a model-turned-magazine editor, wrote The Bikini
Book (Assouline), a just-published celebration of the littlest swimsuit. The
book aims to document the substantial significance the tiny two-piece has had on
the world.
And the most important thing is, it still looks pretty good for a
60-year-old, right?
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