Eureka ! Lois Réard, Mankind Thanks You
Written by Christopher McCaa
A charming story about Lois Réard, a French automobile engineer who decided to create the world's smallest bathing suit: the bikini.
The seemingly endless list of 20th century technological achievements is littered with revolutionary inventions that have rewritten the book of civilization.
From the Internet and the cell phone, to the Atom Bomb and American Idol, these milestones have been beneficial and tragically detrimental to modern day man.
As the aforementioned inventions prove, ingenuity is both a blessing and curse.
But, I’ll choose to bask in the glow and reap the whirlwind of convenience mined by creative minds everywhere, like the microwave, and lest I forget one of my favorite feats of engineering, the bikini.
Thanks to the intrepid pursuits of a French automobile engineer, beaches have been blessed with the presence of scantily-clad beauties frolicking on sun-drenched beaches across the globe.
In the mid 1940s, Louis Réard mulled over the idea of creating the world’s smallest bathing suit.
In 1946, he developed a blue print consisting of a braw top and two inverted triangles of cloth tied together with a simple string.
Réard named his creation the bikini, and in the process cemented his place in fashion’s “Hall of Fame.”
At that time, the world had come under the black shadow of the atomic bomb, which etched its horrific specter in the mind of every person who witnessed its aftermath.
With this in mind, Réard named his invention the bikini, after the Pacific atoll that was used as a site for a nuclear weapon test. The idea was the outfit would have the same explosive impact when released in the world of popular culture.
At the same time, a rival designer, Jacques Heim, was working to develop a similar outfit, which he called the “Atom.” He marketed the creation as “world’s smallest bathing suit”
But Réard was the first to reach the developmental finish line, and was quick to gloat, claiming he had split the atom.
The bikini initially caught on with aristocratic and cutting edge women of the vanguard.
It wasn’t until the actress Brigitte Bardot wore a bikini in the 1958 film "And God Created Woman." that Réard’s invention made its way into the mainstream.
Although it was embraced by some parts of Europe, countries like Spain, Italy and the United States banned the bikini.
Apparently, industrialized societies were unprepared and unwilling to accept the visage of a scantily clad woman carousing in two-piece style throughout the beaches of the world.
But such resistance to the outfit is ironic, given historical evidence reveals that ancient Greek women wore a similar outfit during athletic events.
This evidence of historic fashion sense is not merely hearsay.
The athletes are depicted in paintings on aged Greek urns, wearing nearly identical outfits to its modern day offspring.
But despite the resistance during the middle of the twentieth century, the bikini gradually found worldwide acceptance.
In 1962, the world of cinema once again brought the bikini into a position of national prominence.
In the James Bond installment of Dr. No, Ursula Andress took the screen by storm when she emerged from the sea to meet 007 sporting a seductive white bikini.
With this kind of momentum, it was only a matter of time before the sensual style made its way into women’s closets around the world.
And to the delight of men everywhere, it is generally regarded as the most popular swimsuit to this day.
Although Réard has been gone since 1984, his impact on popular culture was undeniable and apparently unending.
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