Réard took the name “Bikini” from the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands where the atomic bomb testing was taking place. He is quoted as saying that he chose the name because he wanted the risqué two-piece swimsuits to shock the world into hysteria the same way the atomic bomb tests had done. Another Parisian fashion designer, named Jacques Helm, released a similar swimsuit design a few months later to rival Réard’s bikini design called the “Atome”, named after a recently discovered atomic particle. Soon, the fight over whose teeny weenie swimsuit would capture the world stage was on.
Before long, Réard’s design, which was much smaller than Helm’s, began winning the battle. His Bikini’s were so tiny, that he had trouble finding anyone to model them and eventually had to hire a burlesque dancer named Micheline Bernardini from the famed Casino de Paris to wear the swimsuits for the newspaper reporters.
Micheline Bernardini,
wearing Louis Reard's original Bikini for reporters on
July 5th, 1946.
Photo: Louis Malle
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