Parisian Louis Reard's 'Atomic' Bikini Turns 69 New York Daily News
go to original July 5, 2015

The famed swimsuit was first introduced on July 5, 1946. This year is its 69th birthday. We explore a little of its history. (New York Daily News)

On World Bikini Day, today, here's looking at how the tiniest scrap in a woman's wardrobe came to be linked, over the years, to the emancipation of women the world over.

Since the day - way back in 1946, on July 5 - Parisian engineer Louis Reard invented the two-piece swimwear and named it bikini (after Bikini Atoll, in Marshall Islands, where there was atomic bomb was being tested at that time), the bikini has always stayed in the forefront of women's fashion. Over the years, it has undergone many avatars and fashionable cuts, survived resistance by the church and puritans for being too 'risque', and outlived the multitude of fashionable trends that came and went. But till date, thanks to celebs and models with enviable figures, flaunting the latest in bikini and the bikini-bod remains every woman's singular fashion dream.

Read the rest at Times of India

Photo: yomiafolabi.com

Related: World Bikini Day: These Women Remind Us What It Really Means to Have a 'Bikini Body' (HuffPost)

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