| On July 5, 1946, fashion designer Louis Reillard introduced the bikini swimsuit to the world. It would seem that only a crazy screenwriter or a rabid Green Peace activist in some stupid commercial could connect swimsuit fashion with the nuclear threat. But what is surprising about the 20th century is that, if it did not reconcile opposites, it at least taught us how to take advantage of even the most hopeless confrontations.
On July 5, 1945, the Christian Dior fashion house, represented by fashion designer Louis Reillard, presented the public with a new swimsuit model. To say that it was new is to say nothing. The collection shocked world public opinion for a long time: the fashionable novelty was considered at least obscene. And not only because it revealed too much of the female figure. The swimsuit was named after the ill-fated atoll from the Marshall Islands archipelago in the Pacific Ocean - the bikini. In the summer of 1945, the United States began a string of post-war nuclear tests. Flaunting their own primacy in the arms race, the United States is conducting deadly rehearsals in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. In 1946, in the lagoon of one of the paradise atolls, an entire flotilla of decommissioned ships was destroyed by an atomic bomb; a little later, a powerful nuclear installation was exploded under water.
When Reyar was thinking about what to name a new swimsuit model, he came across a newspaper in which sensational news about US nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll was published on the front page. The fashion designer decided to play on the shocking contrast between the complete destruction of a paradise island as a result of an atomic bomb and the presentation of a bright collection of rather revealing (for those times) swimsuits. Essentially, it’s about the contrast between life and death, between the beautiful and the terrible.
The Old World received the new product with a bang. The forced abstinence of wartime has already begun to be compensated by the variety of fabrics and decor in post-war swimwear fashion. McCardell decorates a wool swimsuit with exotic flowers and a map of North Africa; Rose Reid invents a fiber that is invisible in the sun; Schrurer is bringing back shorts, a skirt and a straight, closed top. In 1949, Charles Lang introduced the fitted bra into fashion. The bikini came in handy. It paraded along the beaches of the French Riviera, Spain and Brazil. As for the New World, for it, bikini swimsuits continued to remain synonymous with political scandal for several more years.
When atomic testing ceased to be the “exclusive competence” of the United States, attitudes towards bikinis in the States gradually began to change. But the political symbolism remains. Now the swimsuit is becoming increasingly sexy, embodying the unattainable dream of femininity in the harsh conditions of global confrontation. If back in the late twenties, in some places in the United States, beaches were patrolled in order to stop indecent nudity of ladies (God forbid, someone would think of wearing a swimsuit on the beach without stockings and a long skirt!), but now beach outfits emphasize the intimate dialogue between the body and clothes that do not so much hide as reveal and highlight his beauty.
In 1963, the USSR, USA and Great Britain signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Mini bikinis, tanks (elastic a la dresses worn over shorts) and classic maillots now coexist peacefully on the beaches. Men began sunbathing in tight-fitting swim trunks and boxer shorts, which signified recognition of their natural anatomy and its appropriateness in public. The sixties brought other manifestations of freedom. New trends were especially radically embodied in 1964 by the stylist Rudi Gernreich, boldly and almost completely freeing fashion from modesty. He introduced the topless, or monokini - that is, a bikini free of the top part. The model aroused extraordinary interest in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. In the seventies, string bikinis and thongs became popular on American beaches.
But what about the atoll itself, which gave its name to the most famous women's outfit of the twentieth century? A unique coral reef in the Pacific Ocean has turned into a radioactive wasteland. And although the expelled islanders are still not officially allowed to return home, it is quite possible that now long-legged girls in those very skimpy swimsuits are walking around there, because the Atomic Tourism Park has been opened on Bikini. By paying for a trip to the former training ground, every seeker of specific entertainment can touch the sad story of the lost paradise. “TIME NEWS” based on materials from 2Day.Ru, Pulse and Charm Digest |
|
