sexta-feira, 6 de maio de 2016

the girl in the bikini

We can't imagine beach or summer without wearing a bikini, and right now it's the time to look for some news bikinis for this season!

However, wearing a bikini nowadays it's something normal, but, in the beggining things and people mentality was different. We have to say thanks to brave women that even against society, decided to wear a bikini in public, with no fear. Let's take a look to those women and to the first designers of it and even before, in past centuries and what society thought about this, the bikini!

The name for the bikini design was coined in 1946 by Parisian engineer Louis Réard. He named the swimsuit after Bikini Atoll, where testing on the atomic bomb was taking place. Fashion designer Jacques Heim, also from Paris, re-released a similar design earlier that same year, the Atome. Due to its controversial and revealing design, the bikini was slow to be adopted. In many countries it was banned from beaches and public places. The Vatican declared the design sinful. While still considered risqué, the bikini gradually became a part of popular culture when film stars—Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress and others—began wearing them on public beaches and in film.

The bikini design became common in most Western countries by the mid-1960s as beachwear, swimwear and underwear. By the late 20th century it had become common as sportswear in sports such as beach volleyball and bodybuilding. Variations of the term are used to describe stylistic variations for promotional purposes and industry classifications.

But, before those days....swimming or bathing outdoors was discouraged in the Christian West, so there was little demand or need for swimming or bathing costumes until the 18th century. The bathing gown of the 18th century was a loose ankle-length full-sleeve chemise-type gown made of wool or flannel that retained coverage and modesty.

In 1907, Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing form-fitting sleeveless one-piece knitted swimming tights that covered her from neck to toe, a costume she adopted from England, although it became accepted swimsuit attire for women in parts of Europe by 1910. In 1913, designer Carl Jantzen made the first functional two-piece swimwear. Inspired by the introduction of females into Olympic swimming he designed a close-fitting costume with shorts for the bottom and short sleeves for the top.

During the 1920s and 1930s, people began to shift from "taking in the water" to "taking in the sun", at bathhouses and spas, and swimsuit designs shifted from functional considerations to incorporate more decorative features. Rayon was used in the 1920s in the manufacture of tight-fitting swimsuits, but its durability, especially when wet, proved problematic. Jersey and silk were also sometimes used. By the 1930s, manufacturers had lowered necklines in the back, removed sleeves, and tightened the sides. With the development of new clothing materials, particularly latex and nylon, swimsuits gradually began hugging the body through the 1930s, with shoulder straps that could be lowered for tanning.

Increasingly common glamour shots of popular actresses and models on either side of the Atlantic played a large part in bringing the bikini into the mainstream. During the 1950s, Hollywood stars such as Ava GardnerRita HayworthLana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor,Tina Louise, Marilyn Monroe, Esther Williams, and Betty Grable took advantage of the risqué publicity associated with the bikini by posing for photographs wearing them—pin-ups of Hayworth and Williams in costume were especially widely distributed in the United States. In 1950, Elvira Pagã walked at the Rio Carnival, Brazil in a golden bikini, starting the bikini tradition of the carnival.

In Europe, 17-year-old Brigitte Bardot wore scanty bikinis (by contemporary standards) in the French film Manina, la fille sans voiles ("Manina, the girl unveiled"). The promotion for the film, released in France in March 1953, drew more attention to Bardot's bikinis than to the film itself. By the time the film was released in the United States in 1958 it was re-titled Manina, the Girl in the Bikini. Bardot was also photographed wearing a bikini on the beach during the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. Working with her husband and agent Roger Vadim she garnered significant attention with photographs of her wearing a bikini on every beach in the south of France.

Similar photographs were taken of Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren, among others. According to The Guardian, Bardot's photographs in particular turned Saint-Tropez into the beachwear capital of the world, with Bardot identified as the original Cannes bathing beauty. Bardot's photography helped to enhance the public profile of the festival, and Cannes in turn played a crucial role in her career.

Ursula Andress, appearing as Honey Rider in the 1962 British James Bond film, Dr. No, wore a white bikini, which became known as the "Dr. No bikini". It became one of the most famous bikinis of all time and an iconic moment in cinematic and fashion history. Andress said that she owed her career to that white bikini, remarking, "This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent."

Brigitte Bardot

Grace Kelly

Elizabeth Taylor

Audrey Hepbrun