women embraced it, just like the upper-class European women who first cast off their corsets after World War I." It was banned in the French Atlantic coastline, Spain, Belgium and Italy, three countries neighboring France, as well as Portugal and Australia, and it was prohibited in some US states, and discouraged in others. In 1951, the first Miss World contest (originally the Festival Bikini Contest), was organized by Eric Morley. When the winner, Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. Håkansson remains the first and last Miss World to be crowned in her bikini, a crowning that was condemned by Pope Pius XII who declared the swimsuit to be sinful. Bikinis were banned from beauty pageants around the world after the controversy. In 1949 the Los Angeles Times reported that Miss America Bebe Shopp on her visit to Paris said she did not approve the bikini for American girls, though she did not mind French girls wearing them. Actresses in movies like My Favorite Brunette (1947) and the model on a 1948 cover of LIFE were shown in traditional two-piece swimwear, not the bikini. In 1950, Time magazine interviewed American swimsuit mogul Fred Cole, owner of Cole of California, and reported that he had "little but scorn for France's famed Bikinis," because they were designed for "diminutive Gallic women". "French girls have short legs," he explained, "Swimsuits have to be hiked up at the sides to make their legs look longer." Réard himself described it as a two-piece bathing suit which "reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." Even Esther Williams commented, "A bikini is a thoughtless act." But, popularity of the charms of Pin-up queen and Hollywood star Williams were to vanish along with pre-bikinis with fancy names over the next few decades. Australian designer Paula Straford introduced the bikini to the Gold Coast in 1952. In 1957, Das moderne Mädchen (The Modern Girl) wrote, "It is unthinkable that a decent girl with tact would ever wear such a thing." Eight years later a Munich student was punished to six days cleaning work at an old home because she had strolled across the central Viktualienmarkt square, Munich in a bikini. The Cannes connection Despite the controversy, some in France admired "naughty girls who decorate our sun-drenched beaches". Brigitte Bardot, photographed wearing similar garments on beaches