A bikini is usually a women's abbreviated two-piece swimsuit with a bra top for the chest and panties cut below the navel.
Where does the name come from?
The name for the bikini design was coined in 1946 by Parisian engineer Louis Réard, the designer of the bikini. He named the swimsuit after
Bikini Atoll, where testing on the atomic bomb was taking place.
Various explanations for the swimsuit name have been suggested, none convincing enough.
Perhaps, the best explanation is the analogy of the explosive force of the bomb and the impact that women wearing this world's smallest bathing suit make on men.
Dig In
On 1 July 1946, the United States conducted the first post-war test of an atomic weapon at
Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Bikini was the site for numerous nuclear weapons tests through 1958. Four days after this first test, fashion designer Jacques Heim exhibited a two-piece swimsuit which he
dubbed the bikini in an attempt to ride the publicity wave created by the well-publicized detonation. Months earlier, Heim had marketed another two-piece swimsuit that he named the Atome, because it was so small. Heim did not invent the style of suit, however; skimpy two-piece bathing suits had been in existence since at least the 1930s.
