This book investigates the history of the bikini as a way of noting the change in the perception of women by society, as women have regained responsibility for the way they look and laid claim once more to full sexual equality. A wealth of pictures throughout the book illustrates this womanly progression step-by-step over a period of more than 50 years.

It was in 1946 that the world first came to hear of a coral atoll in the Marshall Islands called Bikini. The following year, French couturier Louis Reard borrowed the name and applied it to a bathing costume for women. Breaking from decades of boring conformity, Reard dared to 'undress' women's bodies in order to better emphasize what remained clothed - albeit in tiny wisps of material. By taking up the bikini as popular beachwear, women also found themselves thinking differently about their bodies. An ideal of perfection was many times reinforced by the appearance on the cinema screen of stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Ursula Andress, all of whom featured in bikinis that accentuated their own gloriously curvaceous contours. More than a bathing costume, the bikini made its own contribution during the 1970s to the sexual revolution, to the changing relationship between men and women in general.

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Birth of the Bikini

Chapter 2

From Scandal to Scandal

Chapter 3

The Frontiers of Imagination

Chapter 4

The Bikini and the Cinema

Chapter 5

The Conditioning of the Body

Chapter 6

The New Freedom

Epilogue

The Beach as Arena for Social Liberty