It’s International Bikini Day today. The beach outfit turns 73 on July 5, 2019. The beachwear that was introduced in the 1800s consisted of belted dress worn with long baggy bloomers. Today, the bikini comes in all shapes, sizes, fabrics and colours. But this modern day bikini came into existence only in the 19th century. In 1946 designer Jacques Heim who ran a beach shop in Cannes, a popular film festival destination created a two-piece outfit and called it ‘Atome’ a la atom. Around the same time, Louis Reard, a French engineer who took care of his mother’s lingerie shop created a swimsuit which exposed the navel for the first time. Reard called his design, the bikini and made it public on July 5, 1946. Europe donned the bikini after a long and hard world war while Americans took time till the 1960s to accept the same. Our very own Sharmila Tagore wore a bikini in the film, An Evening in Paris (1967) sending the country into a tizzy.
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