Although Réard was an engineer, he was running his mother's shoe shop Les Folies Bergères in Paris by
1946. Réard and Jacques Heim, his rival designer, were competing to produce the world's smallest swimsuit. Heim developed his swimsuit and called it the "atom" and advertised it as "the world's smallest bathing suit.”
In 1946 Réard introduced the bikini. His swimsuit was basically a bra top and two inverted triangles of cloth connected by string and it was significantly smaller. Made out of a scant 30 inches of fabric, he promoted his creation as "smaller than the world's smallest bathing suit." He called his creation the bikini, named after the Bikini Atoll. The idea struck him when he saw women rolling up their beachwear to get a better tan.
Louis Reard introduces the worl'd first bikini at a show in Paris (he can't find a model willing to wear it, so he recruits a stripper.) he names the skimpy suit after the American A- bomb test that occuured a week earlier on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Rival French designer Jacques Heim debuts his version of the bikini that summer as well, calling it the "Atom" after the atomic bomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment