Evidence of bikini-style women's clothing has been found as early as 5600 BC, and the history of the bikini can be traced back to that era. Illustrations of women wearing bikini-like garments during competitive athletic events in the Roman era have been found in several locations, the most famous of which is at Villa Romana del Casale.
Although two-piece bathing suits were being used by women as early as the 1930s, the modern bikini is dated to July 5, 1946, when, partly due to material rationing after World War II, French engineer Louis Réard introduced the modern bikini, modeled by Micheline Bernardini. Réard named his design after the Bikini Atoll, where the first post-war tests of the atomic bomb were taking place.
French women welcomed the design but the Catholic Church, some media, and a majority of the public initially thought the design was risqué or even scandalous. Contestants in the first Miss World beauty pageant wore them in 1951, but the bikini was then banned from the competition. Actress Brigitte Bardot drew attention when she was photographed wearing a bikini on the beach during the Cannes Film Festival in 1953. Other actresses, including Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, also received press attention when they wore bikinis. During the early 1960s, the design appeared on the cover of Playboy and Sports Illustrated, credited with giving it additional legitimacy. Ursula Andress made a huge impact when she emerged from the surf wearing what is now an iconic bikini in the James Bond movie Dr. No (1962). The deer skin bikini worn by Raquel Welch in the film One Million Years B.C. (1966) turned her into an international sex symbol and was described as a definitive look of the 1960s.
The bikini gradually grew to gain wide acceptance in the Western world. According to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard, the bikini is perhaps the most popular type of female beachwear around the globe because of "the power of women, and not the power of fashion". As he explains, "The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women." By the early 2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million business annually, and boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and sun tanning.Lorna Edwards, "You've still got it, babe, The Age, June 3, 2006
In antiquity
Pre-Roman
In the Chalcolithic era of around 5600 BC, the mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük, a large ancient settlement in southern Anatolia, was depicted astride two leopards while wearing a bikini-like costume.Prithvi Kumar Agrawala, Goddessess in Ancient India, page 12, Abhinav Publications, 1984, Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes are depicted on Greek urns and paintings dating back to 1400 BC. Active women of ancient Greece wore a breastband called a or an , which continued to be used as an undergarment in the Middle Ages.Stephanie Pedersen, Bra, page 8, David & Charles, 2004, While men in ancient Greece abandoned the perizoma, partly high-cut briefs and partly loincloth, women performers and acrobats continued to wear it.Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Dress, page 21, JHU Press, 2003,
Roman
Artwork dating back to the Diocletian period (286–305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, excavated by Gino Vinicio Gentili in 1950–60, depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaics on the floor.Villa Romana del Casale, Val di Noto The images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls",Allen Guttmann, Women's Sports: A History, page 38, Columbia University Press, 1991, exercising in clothing that would pass as bikinis today, are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles at the site.Villa Romana del Casale , World Heritage Sites In the artwork "Coronation of the Winner" done in floor mosaic in the Chamber of the Ten Maidens (Sala delle Dieci Ragazze in ItalianDarwin Porter & Danforth Prince, Frommer's Sicily, page 272, Frommer's, 2007, ) the bikini girls are depicted weight-lifting, discus throwing, and running. Some activities depicted have been described as dancing,Allen Guttmann, The Erotic in Sports, page 31, Columbia University Press, 1996, as their bodies resemble dancers rather than athletes.Liz James, Women, Men, and Eunuchs, page 126, Routledge, 1997, Coronation in the title of the mosaic comes from a woman in a toga with a crown in her hand and one of the maidens holding a palm frond.
Some academics maintain that the nearby image of Eros, the primordial god of lust, love, and intercourse, was added later, demonstrating the owner's predilections and strengthening the association of the bikini with the erotic.Paul MacKendrick, The Mute Stones Speak, page 433, Norton, 1984, Neil Christie, From Constantine to Charlemagne, page 431, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006, Similar mosaics have been discovered in Tellaro in northern Italy and Patti, another part of Sicily.Philippe Ariès, Paul Veyne, Georges Duby & Arthur Goldhammer, A History of Private Life, page 651, Harvard University Press, 1992,
Prostitution, skimpy clothes and athletic bodies were related in ancient Rome, as images were found of female sex workers exercising with dumbbells/clappers and other equipment wearing costumes similar to the Bikini Girls.Nils Johan Ringdal & Richard Daly, Love for Sale, page 151, Grove Press, 2005,
Charles Seltman, a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, curator of the Archaeology Museum there and an editor of The Cambridge Ancient History, illustrated a chapter titled "The new woman" in his book Women in Antiquity with a 1950s model wearing an identical bikini against the 4th-century mosaics from Piazza Armerina as part of a sisterhood between the bikini-clad female athletes of ancient Greco-Romans and modern woman. A photograph of the mosaic was used by Sarah Pomeroy, Professor of Classics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, in the 1994 British edition of her book Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves to emphasize a similar identification.Janet Huskinson, Experiencing Rome, pages 162–163, Routledge, 2000, According to archeologist George M.A. Hanfmann the bikini girls made the learned observers realize "how modern the ancients were".George Maxim Anossov Hanfmann, Roman Art: A Modern Survey of the Art of Imperial Rome, page XXV, New York Graphic Society, 1964, ASIN B001826ZJO
In ancient Rome, the bikini-style bottom, a wrapped loincloth of cloth or leather, was called a subligar or subligaculum ("little binding underneath"), while a band of cloth or leather to support the breasts was called strophium or mamillare.Barbara F. McManus, Roman Clothing , The College of New Rochelle, 2003 The exercising bikini girls from Piazza Armerina wear subligaria, scanty briefs made as a dainty version of a man's perizoma, and a strophium band about the breasts, often referred to in literature as just fascia, which can mean any kind of bandage. Observation of artifacts and experiments shows bands had to be wrapped several times around the breasts, largely to flatten them in a style popular with flappers in the 1920s.Judith Lynn Sebesta &, Larissa Bonfante, The World of Roman Costume, pages 234–235, Wisconsin Press, 1994, These Greco-Roman breastbands may have flattened big breasts and padded small breasts to look bigger. Evidence suggests regular use.Liza Cleland, Glenys Davies & Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z, Routledge, 2007,
The "bikini girls" from Piazza Armerina, some of whom sport a braless look, do not depict any propensity of such popularity in style. A number of bottoms, made of leather, have been excavated in London and Mainz. There has been no evidence that these bikinis were for swimming or sun-bathing.Liza Cleland, Glenys Davies & Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z, page 19, Routledge, 2007,
Finds especially in Pompeii show the Roman goddess Venus wearing a bikini. A statue of the Venus in a bikini was found in a cupboard in the southwest corner in Casa della Venere, others were found in the front hall.Pompeian Households, Stoa Image Gallery , The Stoa Consortium A statue of the Venus was recovered from the tablinum of the house of Julia Felix,Mary Beard & John Henderson, Classical Art, page 116, Oxford University Press, 2001, and another from an atrium in the garden at Via Dell'Abbondanza.Elisabeth B. MacDougall, Wilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski & Dumbarton Oaks, Ancient Roman Gardens, page 38, Dumbarton Oaks, 1979, Naples National Archaeological Museum, which opened its limited viewing gallery of more explicit exhibits in 2000, also exhibits a "Venus in Bikini".David Willey, "Pompeii's erotic art goes on show", BBC News, 2000-04-16 However, the Naples National Archaeological Museum is keen to stress that this statue actually depicts her Greek counterpart Aphrodite as she is about to untie her sandal, a common theme among other works depicting Aphrodite. The Naples National Archaeological Museum's exhibits include female statues wearing see-through gold lamé brassiere, basque and knickers.
The Kings of Naples discovered these Pompeii artifacts, including the one meter tall, almost unclothed statue of Venus painted in gold leaf with something like a modern bikini. They found them so shocking that for long periods the secret chamber was opened only to "mature persons of secure morals". Even after the doors were opened, only 20 visitors were to be admitted at a time, and children under 12 were not allowed into the new part of the museum without their parents' or a teacher's permission.
There are references to bikinis in ancient literature as well. Ovid, the writer ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, suggests the breastband or long strip of cloth wrapped around the breasts and tucked in the ends, is a good place to hide love-letters. Martial, a Latin poet from Hispania who published between AD 86 and 103, satirized a female athlete he named Philaenis, who played ball in a bikini-like garb quite bluntly, making her drink, gorge and vomit in abundance and hinting at her lesbianism.Louis Crompton, Homosexuality & Civilization, page 98, Harvard University Press, 2006, In an epigram on Chione, Martial strangely mentions a sex worker who went to the bathhouse in a bikini, while it was more natural to go unclothed.Martial, Lindsay Watson & Patricia A. Watson, Select Epigrams, page 189, Cambridge University Press, 2003, Reportedly Theodora, the 6th century empress of the Byzantine Empire wore a bikini when she appeared as an actress before she captured the heart of emperor Justinian I.
There is evidence of ancient Roman women playing , an early version of handball, wearing costumes that have been identified as bikinis.John Anthony Cuddon, The Macmillan Dictionary of Sports and Games, p.393, Macmillan, 1980,
Interval Between the classical bikinis and the modern bikini there has been a long interval. Swimming or outdoor bathing were discouraged in the Christian West and there was little need for a bathing or swimming costume until the 18th century. The bathing gown in the 18th century was a loose ankle-length full-sleeve chemise-type gown made of wool or flannel, so that modesty or decency was not threatened.Claudia B. Kidwell, Women's Bathing and Swimming Costume in the United States, Smithsonian Institution Press, City of Washington, 1968 In the first half of the 19th century the top became knee-length while an ankle-length drawer was added as a bottom. By the second half of the 19th century, in France, the sleeves started to vanish, the bottom became shorter to reach only the knees and the top became hip-length and both became more form fitting. In the 1900s women wore wool dresses on the beach that were made of up to of fabric. That standard of swimwear evolved into the modern bikini in the first of half of the 20th century.
Breakthrough