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Jun. 30--Bikinis made news when they debuted 60 years ago, and they still turn heads today.
Kelly Killoren Bensimon, author of "The Bikini Book,"
said the skin-baring two-piece swimsuit is here to stay. "If it withstood all the chaos it's endured, then it's going to be here forever," she said in a news release.
French designers Jacques Heim and Louis Reard designed the first bikinis, Ms. Bensimon noted. Mr. Reard named the bathing suit after the Marshall Islands' Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, a U.S. test-bombing site. Like a bomb, the suit was "explosive" at the time, she said.
Jonsey Gilbert, 23, owner of Jonsey's Upstairs clothing boutique in East Brainerd, said she has been wearing bikinis since she was 10 years old. She wears a bandeau-style top that ties around the neck with a low-rise bottom.
"I'm short-waisted, so it elongates my torso," she said. "I buy for my shape and wear what's flattering on me."
Lisa Aycock, owner of Lula's fashion boutiques on Signal Mountain and Riverview, said she remembers the first time she bought a bikini.
"I had been wearing bikinis since I was 13, but they weren't too revealing because my parents had a say-so in what I wore," she said. "But when I was 16 and got my first job, I bought a teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini. My parents didn't particularly like it, but I bought it with my own money."
Now a 44-year-old mother, Ms. Aycock said she has traded in the bikini for the more modest tankini, a two-piece suit with fabric that covers the stomach. It's a popular alternative to the skimpy tufts of fabric that characterize many bikini styles available today.
"I don't think age has anything to do with (whether to wear a bikini), but your body does," Ms. Aycock said. "If you've got the body, flaunt it."
Ms. Gilbert, who recently returned from the beach, said it takes a confident woman to wear a bikini -- no matter her size, shape or age.
"The majority of women I saw sporting the bikini were between the ages of 16 to early 30s," she said.
The skin-baring bikini was a far cry from the corset-type one-piece suit that was popular into the 1940s. According to www.fashion-era.com, corset-style swimwear was losing ground to more-revealing swimsuits. Still, women wanted garments that camouflaged problem areas. Manufacturers achieved this by adding stretch tummy-control panels to hold in the stomach and bra cups and boning to give bust support.
Then along came the bikini.
"Women still continued to wear all-in-one swimsuits in the 1950s. The bikini was still thought of as risque and best suited to film stars and strippers," the Web site noted. "Bikinis made news then, and, as versions have become skimpier, they have always attracted attention."
Not all body types, though, are enhanced by the revealing bikini.
"Some body shapes, especially the thicker waisted, simply look better in a onepiece than a two-piece costume," according to the Web site.
"I think Nicolette Sheridan looks a hundred times better in a bikini versus Nicole Richie because Nicolette has curves," Ms. Gilbert said. "I think men like that better than skin and bones, and that's coming from my two brothers and dad."
E-mail Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com DID YOU KNOW?
Singer Brian Hyland released "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" in 1960. Bikinis were seen in Crete thousands of years ago. Pictorial evidence of A.D. 200 suggests that bikini-clad women were cavorting in Sicily's Piazza Armerina, according to www.fashionera.com.
Sports Illustrated launched its first swimsuit issue in 1964 featuring a model in a white bikini. Author Kelly Killoren Bensimon credits the magazine for legitimizing the bikini.
Invented in 1962, lycra, a stretchy combination of synthetic and natural fibers, enabled new swimsuit designs and styles.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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