The modern swimsuit bikini

The modern swimsuit...
Still far from being a bikini!

In the aftermath of the war, men and women used an identical swimsuit. A new element in the women's wardrobe, showing the female body, it largely bared the arms and legs, still far from the famous bikini, but very quickly, a square or rounded neckline imposed the birth of a strap.

The conquest of nudity and the recognition of sports practices led to a radical simplification of the Women's sexy swimwear. There is no longer a personality who does not appear in light summer attire. A seaside wardrobe is set up at the very moment when certain couturiers seize the bathing suit.

The bikini must meet a need for functionality, it must also reflect the aesthetic trend, which is to turn this garment into a fashion accessory.

Designed both for salt water which shrinks wool and for the sun which fades colors. It is good to display a certain tan and, when we talk about bathing, it is as much about the sea as about the sun.

In 1927, the beach costume had definitively entered into customs, it is above all important that nothing hinders the beneficial action of the Sun.

Women, who have seen both their hair and their dresses shorten, must wear a bikini of frightening modesty, it is preferred with a low-cut back to promote sunbathing.

To make elegance on this small piece of jersey that is a bathing suit seems quite difficult.

It is achieved when Couturiers, successively Jean Patou and Elsa Schiaparelli, seize the phenomenon, there is no aristocrat or woman of the world who will not wear a swimsuit designed by Jean Patou.

Little by little, we are approaching the bikini. If the covering shape lost ground in the first thirty years of our century in favor of a swimsuit that reveals more than it hides, the body freed from the corset may still seem, for some women, far from the aesthetic ideal proposed in magazines. For them, there are beach sheaths that do not relax under the action of water and the Sun, it is made using rubber sheets that mold the body and thin it.

Above, the gold and black lizard bikini for women's "St Barth".

Below, Magazine photo “Die Woche” (Berlin, 1929)

Brazilian bikini green and pink hippie "St Barth"

Women's string bikini leopard "Victoria"