Q&A
Who invented the bikini?
SHORT ANSWER
A French engineer unafraid of causing a scandal
LONG ANSWER
Combine a greater sense of liberation and freedom after World War II, the first summer in peacetime for years, and continuing short supplies of materials, and you have the perfect mix for a daring new outfit. On 5 July 1946, French engineer Louis Réard unveiled his invention, the bikini, at a Paris swimming pool. Another designer, Jacques Heim, had claimed to have made the world’s smallest bathing suit, named the ‘Atome’ after the atom, but Reard’s two-piece was smaller, using just 30 inches of fabric. It caused a sensation when modelled by teenage exotic dancer Micheline Bernadini, which Reard knew it would. After all, he named the swimwear after the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, where the US had tested atomic bombs just four days earlier.