Time really does fly right?
Women's swimwear changed forever when the first bikini was invented in 1946 - 70 years ago this month.
Pictured below is nude dancer, Micheline Bernardini, rocking it.
The brain child of a French engineer called Louis Réard, the risqué two-piece quite literally exploded onto the fashion scene.
Back then in the 1940s during the war, US government had introduced fabric rationing and an entrepreneurial Réard realised it presented him with a money-making opportunity.
On July 5 1946, Louise Réard responded by designing that famous garment. The only problem that Réard faced was finding a model brave enough to wear his invention. Thankfully, nude dancer by the name of Micheline Bernardini was up for the challenge.
On July 11 1946, Micheline became the first women to wear a bikini, during a press show in Paris. The bikini was so small it could fit into a match box and women would never look the same on the beach again.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. In 1951 the controversial item was banned following the first Miss World Contest in London. Declared sinful by the Vatican, it was soon banned in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Austria.
Thankfully, the arrival of 60s French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot changed all that. Pictures of a gorgeous Brigitte, pictured below, on the beach at the Cannes film festival in 1953, have been attributed to the bikini's change of fortune.
Sales soared and the bikini went into the mainstream. Brigitte’s floral two-piece has been credited with doing more for French international trade than the car industry.
Pictured below is nude dancer, Micheline Bernardini, rocking it.
The brain child of a French engineer called Louis Réard, the risqué two-piece quite literally exploded onto the fashion scene.
Back then in the 1940s during the war, US government had introduced fabric rationing and an entrepreneurial Réard realised it presented him with a money-making opportunity.
On July 5 1946, Louise Réard responded by designing that famous garment. The only problem that Réard faced was finding a model brave enough to wear his invention. Thankfully, nude dancer by the name of Micheline Bernardini was up for the challenge.
On July 11 1946, Micheline became the first women to wear a bikini, during a press show in Paris. The bikini was so small it could fit into a match box and women would never look the same on the beach again.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. In 1951 the controversial item was banned following the first Miss World Contest in London. Declared sinful by the Vatican, it was soon banned in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Austria.
Thankfully, the arrival of 60s French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot changed all that. Pictures of a gorgeous Brigitte, pictured below, on the beach at the Cannes film festival in 1953, have been attributed to the bikini's change of fortune.
Sales soared and the bikini went into the mainstream. Brigitte’s floral two-piece has been credited with doing more for French international trade than the car industry.
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