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The swimsuit went through some drastic changes during the boomer years. We probably remember our mothers wearing somewhat modest one-piece suits, while we ourselves may have had a two-piece. My sisters and I sometimes swam in a t-shirt and shorts. The bikini is an icon of the fun, free '60s but the earlier two-piece bathing suits were much more modest. Popularized in the movies first by Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio, whose two piece in the film "Caliente" (1934) is said to be the film debut of the two-piece bathing ensemble. Actually, it was a bra with one strap and a skirt tied on the hips. While few actresses in the US sported modest (no belly buttons, please!) two-pieces in the late 1930s and into the 1940s, France was way ahead introducing what was then considered scandalous beach attire. Most average Americans didn't accept the tiny two-piece bathing suits starting to show up on the beaches of France until much later, by the mid-1950s.
The early 1950s brings the true bikini at least to the silver screen (even if most Americans wouldn't dare wear them in public). Bridgett Bardot became synomonous with the 1950s bikini, and soon bikinis are all the rage with teens and young adults. In 1960, Brian Hyland's song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" hit the pop charts. In 1963, the first of the beach party movies, "Beach Party", starred Annette Funicello and other bikini-clad girls dancing on the beach. A few interesting sites about bikinis: Bikini Atoll is a fun site all about the bikini craze. Bikini
Science Check out the lyrics to Brian Hyland's song on Oldie Lyrics. (A Boomerang moment — this song is used right now in a Yoplait commercial touting the benefits of their product in helping people lose weight.)
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Boom me back to the
Main Archive page!
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The
actual "bikini" was a tiny two-piece suit first designed
and displayed by French designer Louis Réard and named
for the tiny Pacific atoll on which A-bombs were tested in 1946.