More than sixty years ago, these bathing suits, now generally accepted, and then - controversial, first appeared at the party by the pool in the French capital. Nowadays it is difficult to comprehend the shock suffered by the public when this controversial swimsuit at the center of attention. Even the French model, who were to represent the latest fashion trends, rejected the bikini. But the evolution of the bikini was inevitable, and it gradually began to take in the western world, and from the French Riviera to the Hollywood streets of America, it has become an integral part of beach life.

Where there was a bikini for the first time?

Historians and archaeologists suggest that the bikini appeared in the early days of the Roman Empire. The famous mosaic of the 4th century BC, discovered in the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, depicts several Roman gymnasts dressed in a gang from the top and a bikini bottom. Statues of women's private parts which are covered with pieces of cloth were also found among the ruins of Pompeii. Moreover, as a public bathing was a common tradition of ancient civilizations, women in ancient Rome wore bathing suits, very reminiscent of the modern bikini. So it is safe to conclude that not the French, namely the Italians first introduced the idea of ​​a bikini.

Fashionable historical summary

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to show half-naked body, of course, it was not permissible. Appearing on the beach, the women were dressed in long and voluminous bathing suits and enjoy bathing machine, a Victorian contraption consisting of small huts on wheels. Women could change into their bathing suits, is a horse (and sometimes people) pulled the carriage to the water. There women can swim, and from shore they were not visible.

However, in 1907 the Australian swimmer and silent film star Annette Kellerman appeared in an indecent way. She was seen at Boston beach in a bathing suit slinky sleeveless. This incident marked the beginning of what the beaches all over America began allowing women to appear in fused knitted swimwear. By the 1940s separate swimwear, consisting of the top of a loop around the neck and lower modestly concealing stomach, buttocks and thighs, began to appear in the figures of Hollywood actresses like Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. Now allowed to open edges, but it was not permissible to show the navel, it could cause a scandal.

In 1946, the bikini was presented to the modern world by the French Jacques Heim and Louis Reardom. They named his creation after the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where the July 1, 1946 were tested a nuclear bomb, hoping that the effect of the bikini is the same as that of the bomb. But a bikini while met with great resistance both in Europe and in the United States, and has not received wide acceptance in the market. The first step is to take tiny swimsuit was made when the French star Brigitte Bardot appeared to him in the film "And God Created Woman" (1956), raising the popularity of bikini in Europe and America.

Bikini has become more acceptable in American society in the 1960s. Perhaps fashion private parties by the pool has increased the popularity of this new kind of swimsuits, because these parties give women an opportunity to try a new way in a confined space. In the 1960s, there was a song by Brian Hyland Itsy Bitsy, Teenie Weenie, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, bikini gives new meaning for a generation of women who happily took up the new summer trends. However, the character of the song, dressed in a bikini, she was afraid to get out of the water. Finally, in 1966 swimsuit bikini appeared to actress Raquel Welch in "One Million Years BC," which helped bikini gain popularity in conservative United States.

For a long time Brazilian bikini (usually a low melting and bra emphasizes large bust, underwire and lace) was banned in Catholic countries such as Italy, Portugal and Spain. But since the 1980s, women in many European countries, including Italy, sunbathing on the beach topless, wearing only the bottom of the swimsuit. The irony here is that, while the Catholic countries allow women to appear in public topless, mostly Protestant United States continue to resist this trend. In the 1970s and 1980s the media declared that wearing a bikini can only holders of a perfect figure.

Time passed, and now some of designers beachwear encourage women of all ages and figure types to wear separate swimwear, once considered provocative. In addition, the choice of swimwear, bikini happened now is great. These include the thong bikini, tankini, mikrokini, pubikini and even sporting a bikini. Simply put, the Italians certainly have long known what they were doing. If the inhabitants of ancient Pompeii or Rome could see what they were transformed pieces of cloth, they came to the delight? One thing is clear: bikini twenty-first century has become more moderate. It is still able to be sexy, but lost the ability to shock.

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