In many countries, the design was banned from beaches and other public places: in 1949, France banned the bikini from being worn on its coastlines Germany banned the bikini from public swimming pools until the 1970s, and some communist groups condemned the bikini as a 'capitalist decadence'. ĭue to its revealing design, the bikini was once considered controversial, facing opposition from a number of groups and being accepted only very slowly by the general public.

No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris named Micheline Bernardini to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions. His skimpy design was risqué, exposing the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. He named the swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where the first public test of a nuclear bomb had taken place four days before. Clothing designer Louis Réard introduced his new, smaller design in July. Like swimsuits of the era, it covered the wearer's belly button, and it failed to attract much attention. In May 1946, Parisian fashion designer Jacques Heim released a two-piece swimsuit design that he named the Atome ('Atom') and advertised as 'the smallest swimsuit in the world'. Bikini bottoms covering about half the buttocks may be described as 'Brazilian-cut', while those covering about three-quarters of the buttocks may be described as 'cheeky' or 'cheeky-cut'. The size of the top and bottom can vary, from bikinis that offer full coverage of the breasts, pelvis, and buttocks, to more revealing designs with a thong or G-string bottom that covers only the mons pubis, but exposes the buttocks, and a top that covers only the areolae. A woman wearing a black bikini at the beachĪ bikini is a two-piece swimsuit primarily worn by women that features one piece on top that covers the breasts, and a second piece on the bottom: the front covering the pelvis but usually exposing the navel, and the back generally covering the intergluteal cleft and a little, some, or all of the buttocks.

Del Río was a pioneer in wearing a two piece swimsuit.

Mexican actress Dolores del Río posing in a publicity photograph for the film In Caliente (1935). For other uses, see Bikini (disambiguation).

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