July 5, 1946
The two piece bathing suit
was the creation of French
designer Louis Reard. It was unveiled at
popular Paris swimming
pool, with showgirl Micheline
Bernardini as the model. Reard named his creation
after the U.S. nuclear tests
conducted off the Bikini
Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The liberated design was
said to have matched the
European mood, coming a
year after the end of World War II. The suit was made
from 30 inches
of fabric. Headlining his creation as
“smaller than the world’s
smallest bathing suit,"
Reard's business soared.