This two-piece garment reveals more than it conceals and has stood the test of social resistance over the years.
July 5th,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Fashion met innovation, in the mid 19th century, a post World War II fabric shortage led to the United States War Production Board slashing usage of natural fibre cloth along with a mandate on reduction of fabric in beachwear for women. A few snips, cuts and slashes and the first signs of the bikini started to takie shape.
Enter the French Designer Jacques Heim, who ran a beach shop in the resort town and now popular film festival destination, Cannes created a two-piece garb in 1946 that he aptly called ‘Atome’ a la atom. Around that time, Louis Réard, a French engineer who also looked after his mother’s lingerie store crafted a swimsuit that exposed the navel for the very first time and gave birth to the string bikini. His inspiration being the women who lolled about on the St Tropez beaches, rolling up their swimsuits for better tanning results. He called this design of his – the bikini – and unveiled it on July 5, 1946, a mere five days after the first testing of a nuclear device was held in Bikini Atoll, expecting an ‘explosive commercial and cultural reaction’. Needless to say, the reaction was more than an explosion.
