willard newell bascom coined the phrase bikini for the two piece swimsuit design in 1946.
who coined the phrase bikini for the two piece swimsuit design in 1946?
willard newell bascom
soon after, louis réard created a competing two-piece swimsuit design, which he called the "bikini". he noticed that women at the beach rolled up the edges of their swimsuit bottoms and tops to improve their tan. on 5 july, réard introduced his design at a swimsuit review held at a popular paris public pool, piscine molitor, four days after the first test of an american nuclear weapon at the bikini atoll. the newspapers were full of news about it and reard hoped for the same with his design. réard's "bikini" undercut heim's "atome" in its brevity. his design consisted of a two triangles of fabric forming a bra, and two triangular pieces of fabric covering the mons pubis and the buttocks connected by string. when he was unable to find a fashion model willing to showcase his revealing design, réard hired micheline bernardini, a 19-year old nude dancer from the casino de paris. he announced that his swimsuit, with a total area of of cloth, was "smaller than the world's smallest bathing suit". réard said that "like the [atom] bomb, the bikini is small and devastating". fashion writer diana vreeland described the bikini as the "atom bomb of fashion". bernardini received 50,000 fan letters, many of them from men.
bikini
before the popularity of the two-piece swimsuit, and then the bikini, virtually all female swimwear completely covered at least the wearer's torso, and men also wore similar swimsuits. while the bikini has increasingly found popular acceptance since the 1960s, the one-piece swimsuit has maintained a place on beaches to this day. some people consider a one-piece swimsuit to be more modest than a two-piece bikini. in some situations, the wearing of a one-piece swimsuit may be mandatory or expected, as in the case of school swimming events and international swimming events.
one-piece swimsuit