Friday, August 10, 2018

Before The Thong, The Origins Of The BIKINI . . .


We hear there's a movement to ban thongs on the beach in Ocean City, NJ where such beachwear has apparently been popping up with alarming frequency.

Some people in the family-friendly resort town are simply appalled! After all, Ocean City touts itself as "America's greatest family resort". And the town has been bone dry (no liquor served, not even BYOBs!) as long as anyone can remember.

But let's not forget that before the thong, there was the bikini. And, by today's standards, bikinis are relatively tame.

Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia blog (and Wikipedia) here's the story of how the bikini came to be: 
Two Frenchmen are known as the inventors of the bikini, Jacques Heimand Louis Réard. In 1946, Louis Réard, an engineer, named his design "Bikini" after a Pacific Ocean atoll and Jacques Heim named his design "atome", the French word for atom, which he said was the world's smallest bathing suit. In response, Réard created a bathing suit with only 30 inches of fabric – it was so small, he couldn't find a model to wear it in public (eventually he hired a nude dancer who was photographed wearing one).
The bikini was considered too controversial and was banned in many European beaches, but during the 1950s many movie actresses, such asDiana DorsMarilyn Monore and Jayne Mansfield were photographed wearing them and the bikini's popularity grew.
Click here for more.

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