Today, July 5, World Bikini Day is celebrated, one of the favorite garments to wear every year in the summer. And it is that with the arrival of heat and summer, there are many who decide to head to beach or mountain destinations to escape the sweltering heat of the cities and where they can cool off wearing their best summer outfits.
The bikini is undoubtedly one of the essential items of clothing during the summer and the choice of July 5 as the day to honor the bikini is no coincidence. Its origin dates back to July 5, 1946, when a man presented to society the design of the first “official” bikini in history.
For this, he needed a volunteer who wanted to try on the outfit in public. A decision that was not easy, since the design of the garment unleashed much controversy at that time, since it was considered vulgar and lewd. The one finally chosen was Micheline Bernardini, a stripper and dancer from the Casino de Paris, since she was the only person who dared to wear the bikini in front of the media.
Its creator was a French automobile engineer named Louis Réard, who also ran his mother’s lingerie shop. His main objective was to create a more modern and daring outfit than those that existed in those years. At the end of the 19th century, women’s bathing suits covered the entire body up to the wrists and ankles. When they got into the water, their clothes multiplied their weight, impeding mobility. In addition, at that time it was unthinkable that women could show their navels, as dictated by the “Hays Code” with its restrictive rules at that time in the world of cinema.
For this reason the arrival of the bikini was a historical fact. The success of the design was so immense that even the engineer was surprised by the impact it had. Although the Frenchman knew from the beginning that this item of clothing was going to revolutionize society and that its impact was going to be “atomic”. Hence the origin of the name bikini. At that time the United States was conducting the first tests with atomic bombs. The chosen place was the Bikini Islands, an atoll of the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.
