The Bikini at 60

Sliced bread? For us, the standard of "greatest thing since" was eclipsed six decades ago with the advent of the sliced swimsuit. Since then the bifurcated garment that liberated women to flaunt their flesh has brewed a cultural mythology all its own, one involving Bardot and Brazilians, Andress and Avalon. How did two tiny pieces of fabric named after an atomic test site so shake up Western civilization? Read on.

You don't have to be a dreamy Pollyanna to know that sometimes things just work out for the best. The Marshall Islands are full of atolls, and the military officer whose job it was to select an appropriately remote and minimally occupied target for the world's fourth atomic bomb explosion, in 1946, had his choice of bull's-eyes: Ailingi-nae, Ailinglaplap, Enewetak, Jabat, Jaluit, Kwajalein, Maloelap, Nadikdik, Namorik, Rongelap, Rongerik, Ujelang and Wotje, among many, many more. Fortunately, that brilliant bomber set his sights on Bikini Atoll, and on July 1 the bomb went off.

The law of unintended consequences has never been more firmly in effect than on that day. Half a planet away, in Paris—a dismal Paris still trying to rinse the gray Nazi occupation out of its system—a light went on in the head of Louis Réard. An automotive engineer whose professional ambitions had been diverted from the prosaic concerns of torque and horsepower, Réard was then running his mother's lingerie business and had set his eye on a more idealistic, philanthropic goal: He aimed to design the world's tiniest swimsuit for women. Earlier a similarly inspired humanitarian, Jacques Heim, had come out with a little two-piece bathing suit whose brevity he saluted with the name Atome. Heim was on the right track. The suit was small (though not quite small enough), and the name was nuclear without being a direct hit. Réard, however, had the right suit, and once the explosion in the Pacific took place, he had the perfect name. The Frenchman heard in the Micronesian island's name a word that not only contained the Latin prefix bi, meaning two, but would mean va-voom! in every language on earth. Just thank your lucky stars none of us has ever had to say, "Check out that chick in the ailinglaplap!"

The bikini was slow to catch on. Throughout the 1940s Hollywood stars hit the beaches in midriff-baring two-piece suits, but the designs were so sufficiently structured that the actresses always looked more in danger of catching cold than of losing their virtue. The bikini was much more daring; as Réard said, "A bikini isn't a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring." In its original form it had a strapless top, its bottom rode high on the hips, and most provocative of all, it bared the belly button for all the world to see. One may think unveiling the umbilicus, common as it is, wouldn't cause such a stir, but people knew: If men could so readily gaze upon the vestibule of the temple of Venus, in no time they would be thinking of serving at its altar.

Left to itself the bikini might have foundered under the disapproval of rule makers at both the Vatican and Vogue. Luckily, the first Cannes International Film Festival, in 1946, gave the swim-suit the showcase it required. Where there is a film festival, there are starlets; where there are starlets, there are photographers; where there is a beach, there is pulchritude to be snapped. Eventually from among these beauties emerged the first great ambassadress of the bikini, Brigitte Bardot. Indeed, her big break came when she was 18 years old, in her second film, which was originally called Martina, La Fille Sans Voile ("Manina, the Girl Without a Veil") but, in an early example of the brilliance of no-frills branding, was retitled The Girl in the Bikini for its U.S. release. To see Bardot in a bikini was to see Eve in Eden—not merely beautiful but utterly nonchalant about being viewed in her nearly natural state. For the next decade, during which she would reign as one of the world's preeminent sex stars, Bardot was the bikini's partner in publicity. She allowed cameras to document her switch from a bandeau to an underwire, her premiere of the string brief, the wanderings of her bra strap as she snuggled with a boyfriend and ultimately the moment when she helped establish topless sunbathing on the beaches of St.-Tropez.

But if Bardot is the first lady of the bikini, surely Ursula Andress is its queen. One may be tempted to defend her claim on the basis of still photography alone, wherein her bikini-clad voluptuousness is placed on breathtaking display, but that's like saying Babe Ruth should be in the Hall of Fame for nothing but his pitching. Andress, of course, starred in Dr. No, in which her leisurely bikinied emergence from the Caribbean helped start James Bond on his 44-years-long-and-counting career as a cultural character and box-office power. Britain's Channel 4 has ranked the scene as the sexiest screen moment of all time, and neither Raquel Welch (dinokini, One Million Years B.C.), Carrie Fisher (Jabbakini, Return of the Jedi), Phoebe Cates (teenkini, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) nor Halle Berry (spykini, Die another day) felt entitled to challenge the results.

Of course by the time Andress entered immortality the bikini was losing its controversial edge. Brian Hyland had a hit in 1960 with "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini," an irresistibly infectious ditty that, by gently poking fun at the anxiety of appearing nearly nude in public, did what the mocking of scary things always does—namely, make them seem less scary. Within three years the bikini stopped being a wholly owned sex-kitten subsidiary and, via such films as Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, became synonymous with Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and the cream of America's fun-loving (and, let's face it, squarest) youth.

Perhaps it's most remarkable that, for such a tiny piece of territory, the bikini has continued to be the site of so much sensual creativity. One may think that, having seen the bikini, there's not much else to see. But there's the bikini with a strap hanging insouciantly off the shoulder, creating a compelling crescent of space between cup and breast. There's the bikini unclipped as the sunbathing wearer lies prone, birthing in the idle male mind fevered plots centered on startling the young lady to her feet. There's the bikini that requires a bikini wax and consequently leads to Doritos, Brazilians, sphinxes and other works of follicle art. There are designs cut low to showcase cleavage, bandeaux that reveal surprising underboobage, the high cuts that show thighage and the thongs that reveal tout au naturel—endless designs coupled with endless variations on femininity to produce eternal fascination. The bikini is 60, and we haven't seen anything yet.

The Bikini keeps Evolving. For all we've seen. We haven't seen anything yet.