In the history of the bikini, there are bikinis of all sizes and colors, textures and materials, but, without a doubt, it is and will continue to be a garment that causes a stir.
On a day like today, but in 1946, the bikini came to light in the world. A garment that not only innovated women's clothing, but also became a symbol of revolution in body expression and sexual liberation that continues to cause a stir in the 21st century.
While it is true that the two-piece garment that becomes popular every summer is part of the wardrobe of many women, it would be contradictory to think that a garment, symbol of women's sexual liberation, has been designed by a man.
The history of the bikini dates back to the post-war era when a French automobile engineer by the name of Louis Reard designed a swimsuit for women that broke with the standards of heavy fabrics that covered much of the female body when vacationing at the pool or on the beach.
At the time, no woman would accept the challenge of showing her body in the controversial but now famous swimsuit spread over three triangles of fabric. However, on July 5, 1946, Micheline Bernardini, a striptease dancer, agreed to pose in the garment at the iconic Molitor Pool in Paris, France.
However, the acceptance of the garment turned out to be nothing less than for the conservative sector, a bombshell of the same magnitude as that of the post-war Bikini Island, for which the swimsuit acquired its name.
The powerful swimsuit had an impact in several parts of Europe, reaching Spain, where General Francisco Franco censored, in 1951, the use of this garment on Spanish beaches, as he considered it immoral for a woman to expose her navel.
This garment was not accepted with complete naturalness until renowned actresses such as French Brigitte Bardot in Willy Rozier's "The Bikini Girl" (1952), made the bikini a woman's attribute, or in the Golden Age of Hollywood with Marilyn Monroe, as well as Ava Gardner and Rachel Welch who popularized this garment.
Today, women's bodies exposed in bikinis in politics is as shocking as it was with politics. Ségolène Royalsocialist pre-candidate for the presidency of the French Republic, who in 2006 competed with the conservative Nicolas Sarközyand strolled along the beaches at the age of 53 in bikinis and was considered not very serious.
Although the acceptance of the bikini garment is nowadays normalized, it is not so with women's bodies.
Currently, campaigns that seek to destigmatize the rigid beauty standards that have been created around the bikini, such as opinions about women's weight and physical appearance, have been popularized in advertising campaigns that seek to democratize the garment.
The popular phrase of the protein ad that in 2016 caused anger among the London society "Are you beach body ready?" for showing advertising on the subway with extremely thin bodies in women and muscular bodies in men.
So, at the time, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, pledged in his election campaign to ban advertisements that pressured people to meet beauty standards that were detrimental to people's health.
In response to this, society's response popularized the phrase: "What does it take to wear a bikini? Generating an answer that continues to be contentious: "Easy, have a body and wear a bikini".
This 2022 there are still women who still cannot wear a bikini either because of machismo, social pressure, religion or perhaps because women today live more pressure on the decisions they make about their bodies.
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