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INDAH – presenting SS16 collection during Swim Week in South Beach Miami at W Hotel 7/2015
WEBSITE LINK: INDAH SWIM
FACEBOOK LINK: INDAH CLOTHING
YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE HIGHLIGHTS (0:49)
DAILYMOTION VIDEO OF THE FULL SHOW (16:04)
On Sunday, July 19th, 2015, over 500 guests including top media, influencers and buyers, attended the WET Lounge, at the W South Beach, to experience a rocking runway show. Indah debuted its 2016 collection, Collage, during SWIMMIAMI. By definition a collage is assembling different elements to create a new whole, and the designer, Libby Desantis, showcased her new vision with various looks inspired by different eras: 20’s art deco, 70’s punk rock, layered with 80’s glam and 90’s minimalism. Collaborating with artist, Anya Brock, Indah’s color palette is drawn from an abstract painting. Pops of painterly prints and bright hues are contrasted well against darker styles. Handmade with love from Bali, chains, studs, sequins, leather, lattice lace, shag and bones are incorporated into this collection, effortlessly adding an edgy statement to wearable fashion
High wispy hair and loose intricate braids added volume to each look. By using styling products of the highest caliber from René Furterer, and adding depth with luxe hair extensions from Indique, the hairstyle created a rocker chic meets Mad Max style. The look was straight forward, yet simultaneously feminine. It was a smoke show with Ted Gibson’s bold, black smokey eyes and UooLaa’s luscious lashes–creating drama that emulates the collection. FakeBake provided a bronzed goddess look while Zoya provided professional nailcare. Midnight navy and metallic silver polishes popped against the tan models. These colors provided a posh elegance which complimented the tough looks of the metal jewelry provided by Blaine Bowen, which included an assortment of fringed cuffs, braided bracelets and ear-cuffs. Electric Eyewear, available at Nordstrom.com, provided sunnies that mirrored the Collage Collection. Sleek frames with blackout lenses added to the overall look of the Indah woman: a confident, unapologetic mermaid with an “I don’t care” attitude. Indah was also excited to have sponsor support from Airelle, a premier natural skin care line recommended by top dermatologists and plastic surgeons, Silk’n Flash & Go, the at-home solution for painless, permanent hair removal and Braza, a functional, problem solving collection of products that provide women comfort, confidence and a carefree positive dressing experience.
ABOUT INDAH
INDAH is a Bali-based women’s swim and beachwear brand founded in 1997. Known for vibrant colors, seductive cuts, unique details and luxe fabrics, the brand embodies the meaning of Indah, which translates to mean “beautiful” in Indonesian. Rooted in the lifestyle of adventure and excitement, Libby, creates exotic designs inspired by her love for the island—her home. Indah owns and operates their own eco-friendly, solar powered and no waste water fabric processing facility.
The brand can be found in retail boutiques nationwide including Planet Blue, Urban Outfitters, Revolve Clothing, iShine365, Shopbop and Nasty Gal.
ABOUT ELECTRIC
Founded in 2000 in California, Electric makes quality products that enhance active lifestyles – offering ‘Style that performs’. By building upon what has stood the test of time, Electric reengineers classics. The brand designs and markets sunglasses, snow goggles and helmets, watches, backpacks, luggage and accessories. They can be found throughout the Americas, Europe, Japan, China and Australasia in Lifestyle boutiques, department stores, sports shops and online, including Electric’s own e-commerce websites. Electric is part of the Kering Group, a world leader in apparel and accessories which develops an ensemble of powerful Luxury and Sport & Lifestyle brands.
(above text by TANNER WALKER)
ABOUT SWIM WEEK
Even without longtime organizer IMG, Swim Week in 2015 has delivered a bounty of barely-there swimsuit collection for Spring/Summer 2016.
After IMG announced in May that it would be pulling out of what was formerly called Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim, following the loss of its title sponsor, those involved had a lot of scrambling to do. Without a strong sponsor or an experienced organizer, could Swim Week even continue in all its stringy, deeply spray-tanned glory? True to the old adage, the show did go on thanks to the (somewhat) cohesive efforts of the affected brands, production companies and publicists.
Kicking off on July 15, this year’s Swim Week has appeared entirely unblemished — or the collections have, anyway. Old pros like Mara Hoffman and Mikoh delivered even more desirable swimwear for spring 2016, while a few less established names — in the swim world at least — brought some newness to the event. Maxim magazine, for one, showed its first-ever swimwear collection, inspired by Brigitte Bardot and chock-full of high-waisted bottoms and floaty coverups. Others, like Colombia-made Maaji Swimwear, went the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show route, going all-out on a kooky theme, this year’s being a tousled, bohemian-era road trip.
But whether it was inspired by Bardot or Route 66, the common thread between each collection was an abundance barely-there, Brazilian wax-requiring swimwear. As with every year, some looks were so nude, so thinly-covered…you’ll just have to see them for yourself.
(above text by MAURA BRANNIGAN)
MIAMI SWIM WEEK:
A week spread between the sweaty Miami heat of three separate trade shows – Swim Show, Cabana and Hammock – of various personalities, with relevant brands occupying space in the show that suit their vibe. All of these shows are situated within walking distance of each other. Brands also have parties or fashion shows throughout the four days at nearby hotels and pools, making Miami Swim Week super busy and a whole lotta fun.
There is a lot to take in with over 25 external runway shows after 5pm, parties and the three simultaneous trade shows, but it’s plenty pleasing on the eye. There’s hot, Miami energy and it’s awesome to be seeing a preview of swim collections from the hottest brands for 2016.
MIAMI SWIM SHOW:
The world’s biggest swim show which occupies the convention centre with hundreds of brands from across the globe. Brands featured that we liked included Seafolly, Billabong, NLP Women, Kopper & Zinc, and Rhythm amongst hundreds of others.
CABANA:
This is the boutique show where the brands showcase in two big, cabana-style tents near the beach with coconuts issued to buyers, media and guests on entry. A few of our faves included Beach Riot, Minimale Animale, Tori Praver Swim, Mara Hoffman, Bec and Bridge, Boys and Arrows and Bower Swim.
HAMMOCK:
Situated in the W Hotel, with the coolest brands of today occupying the luxury suites to showcase their latest collection with their marketing teams and a bevy of hot models. Leading Instagram swim brands seemed to be the big brands in this year’s Hammock W show including Mikoh, Indah and Frankies Swim.
OTHER LINKS
www.grindtv.com/transworld-business/news/electric-sunglas…
www.miami.com/wetter-better-look-season039s-swim-week-art…
oceandrive.com/top-miami-swim-week-events-you-need-to-att…
www.aol.com/article/2014/07/29/swimwear-on-miami-beach-ru…
www.fashiondesignersindia.com/fashion-brand-indah/
miamistyleguide.com/indah-x-my-beachy-side-at-swim-miami/
www.bikini.com/style/runway-report-exclusive-look-indahs-…
www.venuemagazine.com/2015/07/20/swimweekonfleek-recap/
vegasmagazine.com/where-to-buy-stylish-bathing-suits
www.realstylenetwork.com/fashion-and-style/2015/07/best-l…
HISTORY OF THE BIKINI
Time magazine list of top 10 bikinis in popular culture
-Micheline Bernardini models the first-Ever Bikini (1946)
-“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (1960)
-Annette Funicello and Beach Party (1960’s)
-The belted Bond-girl bikini (1962)
-Sports Illustrated’s first Swimsuit Issue (1964)
-Raquel Welch’s fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. (1966)
-Phoebe Cates’ Bikini in Fast Times at Ridgemont High
-Princess Leia’s golden bikini in Return of the Jedi (1983)
-Official uniform of the female Olympic Beach Volleyball team (1996)
-Miss America pageant’s bikini debut (1997)
The history of the bikini can be traced back to antiquity. Illustrations of Roman women wearing bikini-like garments during competitive athletic events have been found in several locations. The most famous of them is Villa Romana del Casale. French engineer Louis Réard introduced the modern bikini, modeled by Micheline Bernardini, on July 5, 1946, borrowing the name for his design from the Bikini Atoll, where post-war testing on the atomic bomb was happening.
French women welcomed the design, but the Catholic Church, some media, and a majority of the public initially thought the design was risque or even scandalous. Contestants in the first Miss World beauty pageant wore them in 1951, but the bikini was then banned from the competition. Actress Bridget Bardot drew attention when she was photographed wearing a bikini on the beach during the Cannes Film Festival in 1953. Other actresses, including Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, also gathered press attention when they wore bikinis. During the early 1960’s, the design appeared on the cover of Playboy and Sports Illustrated, giving it additional legitimacy. Ursula Andress made a huge impact when she emerged from the surf wearing what is now an iconic bikini in the James Bond movie Dr. No (1962). The deer skin bikini Raquel Welch wore in the film One Million Years B.C. (1966) turned her into an international sex symbol and was described as a definitive look of the 1960’s.
The bikini gradually grew to gain wide acceptance in Western society. According to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard, the bikini is perhaps the most popular type of female beachwear around the globe because of “the power of women, and not the power of fashion”. As he explains, “The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women.” By the early 2000’s, bikinis had become a US $ 811 million business annually, and boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning.
Necklines and midriff
By the 1930’s, necklines plunged at the back, sleeves disappeared and sides were cut away and tightened. With the development of new clothing materials, particularly latex and nylon, through the 1930’s swimsuits gradually began hugging the body, with shoulder straps that could be lowered for tanning. Women’s swimwear of the 1930’s and 1940’s incorporated increasing degrees of midriff exposure. Coco Chanel made suntans fashionable, and in 1932 French designer Madeleine Vionnet offered an exposed midriff in an evening gown. They were seen a year later in Gold Diggers of 1933. The Busby Berkeley film Footlight Parade of 1932 showcases aqua-choreography that featured bikinis. Dorothy Lamour’s The Hurricane (1937) also showed two-piece bathing suits.
The 1934 film, Fashions of 1934 featured chorus girls wearing two-piece outfits which look identical to modern bikinis. In 1934, a National Recreation Association study on the use of leisure time found that swimming, encouraged by the freedom of movement the new swimwear designs provided, was second only to movies in popularity as free time activity out of a list of 94 activities. In 1935 American designer Claire McCardell cut out the side panels of a maillot-style bathing suit, the bikini’s forerunner. The 1938 invention of the Telescopic Watersuit in shirred elastic cotton ushered into the end the era of wool. Cotton sun-tops, printed with palm trees, and silk or rayon pajamas, usually with a blouse top, became popular by 1939. Wartime production during World War II required vast amounts of cotton, silk, nylon, wool, leather, and rubber. In 1942 the United States War Production Board issued Regulation L-85, cutting the use of natural fibers in clothing and mandating a 10% reduction in the amount of fabric in women’s beachwear. To comply with the regulations, swimsuit manufacturers produced two-piece suits with bare midriffs.
Postwar
Fabric shortage continued for some time after the end of the war. Two-piece swimsuits without the usual skirt panel and other excess material started appearing in the US when the government ordered a 10% reduction in fabric used in woman’s swimwear in 1943 as wartime rationing. By that time, two-piece swimsuits were frequent on American beaches. The July 9, 1945, Life shows women in Paris wearing similar items. Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner tried similar swimwear or beachwear. Pin ups of Hayworth and Esther Williams in the costume were widely distributed. The most provocative swimsuit was the 1946 Moonlight Buoy, a bottom and a top of material that weighed only eight ounces. What made the Moonlight Buoy distinctive was a large cork buckle attached to the bottoms, which made it possible to tie the top to the cork buckle and splash around au naturel while keeping both parts of the suit afloat. Life magazine had a photo essay on the Moonlight Buoy and wrote, “The name of the suit, of course, suggests the nocturnal conditions under which nude swimming is most agreeable.”
American designer Adele Simpson, a Coty American Fashion Critics’ Awards winner (1947) and a notable alumna of the New York art school Pratt Institute, who believed clothes must be comfortable and practical, designed a large part of her swimwear line with one-piece suits that were considered fashionable even in early 1980’s. This was when Cole of California started marketing revealing prohibition suits and Catalina Swimwear introduced almost bare-back designs. Teen magazines of late 1940’s and 1950’s featured designs of midriff-baring suits and tops. However, midriff fashion was stated as only for beaches and informal events and considered indecent to be worn in public. Hollywood endorsed the new glamour with films such as Neptune’s Daughter (1949) in which Esther Williams wore provocatively named costumes such as “Double Entendre” and “Honey Child”. Williams, who also was an Amateur Athletic Union champion in the 100 meter freestyle (1939) and an Olympics swimming finalist (1940), also portrayed Kellerman in the 1952 film Million Dollar Mermaid (titled as The One Piece Bathing Suit in UK).
Swimwear of the 1940’s, 50’s and early 60’s followed the silhouette mostly from early 1930’s. Keeping in line with the ultra-feminine look dominated by Dior, it evolved into a dress with cinched waists and constructed bust-lines, accessorized with earrings, bracelets, hats, scarves, sunglasses, hand bags and cover-ups. Many of these pre-bikinis had fancy names like Double Entendre, Honey Child (to maximize small bosoms), Shipshape (to minimize large bosoms), Diamond Lil (trimmed with rhinestones and lace), Swimming In Mink (trimmed with fur across the bodice) and Spearfisherman (heavy poplin with a rope belt for carrying a knife), Beau Catcher, Leading Lady, Pretty Foxy, Side Issue, Forecast, and Fabulous Fit. According to Vogue the swimwear had become more of “state of dress, not undress” by mid-1950’s.
The modern bikini
French fashion designer Jacques Heim, who owned a beach shop in the French Riviera resort town of Cannes, introduced a minimalist two-piece design in May 1946 which he named the “Atome,” after the smallest known particle of matter. The bottom of his design was just large enough to cover the wearer’s navel.
At the same time, Louis Réard, a French automotive and mechanical engineer, was running his mother’s lingerie business near Les Folies Bergères in Paris. He noticed women on St. Tropez beaches rolling up the edges of their swimsuits to get a better tan and was inspired to produce a more minimal design. He trimmed additional fabric off the bottom of the swimsuit, exposing the wearer’s navel for the first time. Réard’s string bikini consisted of four triangles made from 30 square inches (194 cm2) of fabric printed with a newspaper pattern.
When Réard sought a model to wear his design at his press conference, none of the usual models would wear the suit, so he hired 19 year old nude dancer Micheline Bernardini from the Casino de Paris. He introduced his design to the media and public on July 5, 1946, in Paris at Piscine Molitor, a public pool in Paris. Réard held the press conference five days after the first test of a nuclear device (nicknamed Able) over the Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads. His swimsuit design shocked the press and public because it was the first to reveal the wearer’s navel.
To promote his new design, Heim hired skywriters to fly above the Mediterranean resort advertising the Atome as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” Not to be outdone by Heim, Réard hired his own skywriters three weeks later to fly over the French Riviera advertising his design as “smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world.”
Heim’s design was the first to be worn on the beach, but the name given by Réard stuck with the public. Despite significant social resistance, Réard received more than 50,000 letters from fans. He also initiated a bold ad campaign that told the public a two-piece swimsuit was not a genuine bikini “unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.” According to Kevin Jones, curator and fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, “Réard was ahead of his time by about 15 to 20 years. Only women in the vanguard, mostly upper-class European women embraced it.”
Social resistance
Bikini sales did not pick up around the world as women stuck to traditional two-piece swimsuits. Réard went back to designing conventional knickers to sell in his mother’s shop. According to Kevin Jones, curator and fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, “Réard was ahead of his time by about 15 to 20 years. Only women in the vanguard, mostly upper-class European women embraced it, just like the upper-class European women who first cast off their corsets after World War I.” It was banned in the French Atlantic coastline, Spain, Belgium and Italy, three countries neighboring France, as well as Portugal and Australia, and it was prohibited in some US states, and discouraged in others.
In 1951, the first Miss World contest (originally the Festival Bikini Contest), was organized by Eric Morley. When the winner, Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. Håkansson remains the first and last Miss World to be crowned in her bikini, a crowning that was condemned by Pope Pius XII who declared the swimsuit to be sinful. Bikinis were banned from beauty pageants around the world after the controversy. In 1949 the Los Angeles Times reported that Miss America Bebe Shopp on her visit to Paris said she did not approve the bikini for American girls, though she did not mind French girls wearing them. Actresses in movies like My Favorite Brunette (1947) and the model on a 1948 cover of LIFE were shown in traditional two-piece swimwear, not the bikini.
In 1950, Time magazine interviewed American swimsuit mogul Fred Cole, owner of Cole of California, and reported that he had “little but scorn for France’s famed Bikinis,” because they were designed for “diminutive Gallic women”. “French girls have short legs,” he explained, “Swimsuits have to be hiked up at the sides to make their legs look longer.” Réard himself described it as a two-piece bathing suit which “reveals everything about a girl except for her mother’s maiden name.” Even Esther Williams commented, “A bikini is a thoughtless act.” But, popularity of the charms of Pin-up queen and Hollywood star Williams were to vanish along with pre-bikinis with fancy names over the next few decades. Australian designer Paula Straford introduced the bikini to Gold Coast in 1952. In 1957, Das moderne Mädchen (The Modern Girl) wrote, “It is unthinkable that a decent girl with tact would ever wear such a thing.” Eight years later a Munich student was punished to six days cleaning work at an old home because she had strolled across the central Viktualienmarkt square, Munich in a bikini.
The Cannes connection
Despite the controversy, some in France admired “naughty girls who decorate our sun-drenched beaches”. Brigitte Bardot, photographed wearing similar garments on beaches during the Cannes Film Festival (1953) helped popularize the bikini in Europe in the 1950’s and created a market in the US. Photographs of Bardot in a bikini, according to The Guardian, turned Saint-Tropez into the bikini capital of the world. Cannes played a crucial role in the career of Brigitte Bardot, who in turn played a crucial role in promoting the Festival, largely by starting the trend of being photographed in a bikini at her first appearance at the festival, with Bardot identified as the original Cannes bathing beauty. In 1952, she wore a bikini in Manina, the Girl in the Bikini (1952) (released in France as Manina, la fille sans voiles), a film which drew considerable attention due to her scanty swimsuit. During the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, she worked with her husband and agent Roger Vadim, and garnered a lot of attention when she was photographed wearing a bikini on every beach in the south of France.
Like Esther Williams did a decade earlier, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot all used revealing swimwear as career props to enhance their sex appeal, and it became more accepted in parts of Europe when worn by fifties “love goddess” actresses such as Bardot, Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren. British actress Diana Dors had a mink bikini made for her during the 1955 Venice Film Festival and wore it riding in a gondola down Venice’s Grand Canal past St. Mark’s Square.
In Spain, Benidorm played a similar role as Cannes. Shortly after the bikini was banned in Spain, Pedro Zaragoza, the mayor of Benidorm convinced dictator Francisco Franco that his town needed to legalize the bikini to draw tourists. In 1959, General Franco agreed and the town became a popular tourist destination. Interestingly, in less than four years since Franco’s death in 1979, Spanish beaches and women had gone topless.
Legal and moral resistance
The swimsuit was declared sinful by the Vatican and was banned in Spain, Portugal and Italy, three countries neighboring France, as well as Belgium and Australia, and it remained prohibited in many US states. As late as in 1959, Anne Cole, a US swimsuit designer and daughter of Fred Cole, said about a Bardot bikini, “It’s nothing more than a G-string. It’s at the razor’s edge of decency.” In July that year the New York Post searched for bikinis around New York City and found only a couple. Writer Meredith Hall wrote in her memoir that till 1965 one could get a citation for wearing a bikini in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.
In 1951, the first Miss World contest, originally the Festival Bikini Contest, was organized by Eric Morley as a mid-century advertisement for swimwear at the Festival of Britain. The press welcomed the spectacle and referred to it as Miss World, and Morley registered the name as a trademark. When, the winner Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. The bikinis were outlawed and evening gowns introduced instead. Håkansson remains the only Miss World crowned in a bikini, a crowning that was condemned by the Pope. Bikini was banned from beauty pageants around the world after the controversy. Catholic-majority countries like Belgium, Italy, Spain and Australia also banned the swimsuit that same year.
The National Legion of Decency pressured Hollywood to keep bikinis from being featured in Hollywood movies. The Hays production code for US movies, introduced in 1930 but not strictly enforced till 1934, allowed two-piece gowns but prohibited navels on screen. But between the introduction and enforcement of the code two Tarzan movies, Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), were released in which actress Maureen O’Sullivan wore skimpy bikini-like leather outfits. Film historian Bruce Goldstein described her clothes in the first film as “It’s a loincloth open up the side. You can see loin.” All at sea was allowed in the USA in 1957 after all bikini-type clothes were removed from the film. The girl in the bikini was allowed in Kansas after all the bikini close ups were removed from the film in 1959.
In reaction to the introduction of the bikini in Paris, American swimwear manufacturers compromised cautiously by producing their own similar design that included a halter and a midriff-bottom variation. Though size makes all the difference in a bikini, early bikinis often covered the navel. When the navel showed in pictures, it was airbrushed out by magazines like Seventeen. Navel-less women ensured the early dominance of European bikini makers over their American counterparts. By the end of the decade a vogue for strapless styles developed, wired or bound for firmness and fit, along with a taste for bare-shouldered two-pieces called Little Sinners. But, it was the halterneck bikini that caused the most moral controversy because of its degree of exposure. So much so as bikini designs called “Huba Huba” and “Revealation” were withdrawn from fashion parades in Sydney as immodest.
Rise to popularity
The appearance of bikinis kept increasing both on screen and off. The sex appeal prompted film and television productions, including Dr. Strangelove. They include the surf movies of the early 1960’s. In 1960, Brian Hyland’s song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” inspired a bikini-buying spree. By 1963, the movie Beach Party, starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, followed by Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) that depicted teenage girls wearing bikinis, frolicking in the sand with boys, and having a great time.
The beach films led a wave of films that made the bikini pop-culture symbol. In the sexual revolution in 1960’s America, bikinis became quickly popular. Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Gina Lollobrigida, and Jane Russell helped further the growing popularity of bikinis. Pin-up posters of Monroe, Mansfield, Hayworth, Bardot and Raquel Welch also contributed significantly to its increasing popularity. In 1962, Playboy featured a bikini on its cover for the first time. Two years later, Sports Illustrated featured Berlin-born fashion model Babette March on the cover wearing a white bikini. The issue was the first Swimsuit Issue. It gave the bikini legitimacy, became an annual publication and an American pop-culture staple, and sells millions of copies each year. In 1965, a woman told Time it was “almost square” not to wear one. In 1967 the magazine wrote that 65% of “the young set” were wearing bikinis.
When Jayne Mansfield and her husband Miklós Hargitay toured for stage shows, newspapers wrote that Mansfield convinced the rural population that she owned more bikinis than anyone. She showed a fair amount of her 40-inch (1,000 mm) bust, as well as her midriff and legs, in the leopard-spot bikini she wore for her stage shows. Kathryn Wexler of The Miami Herald wrote, “In the beginning as we know it, there was Jayne Mansfield. Here she preens in leopard-print or striped bikinis, sucking in air to showcase her well noted physical assets.” Her leopard-skin bikini remains one of the earlier specimens of the fashion.
In 1962, Bond Girl Ursula Andress emerged from the sea wearing a white bikini in Dr. No. The scene has been named one of the most memorable of the series. Channel 4 declared it the top bikini moment in film history, Virgin Media puts it ninth in its top ten, and top in the Bond girls. The Herald (Glasgow) put the scene as best ever on the basis of a poll. It also helped shape the career of Ursula Andress, and the look of the quintessential Bond movie. Andress said that she owed her career to that white bikini, remarking, “This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent.” In 2001, the Dr. No bikini worn by Andress in the film sold at auction for US$61,500. That white bikini has been described as a “defining moment in the sixties liberalization of screen eroticism”. Because of the shocking effect from how revealing it was at the time, she got referred to by the joke nickname “Ursula Undress”. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, “So iconic was the look that it was repeated 40 years later by Halle Berry in the Bond movie Die Another Day.”
Raquel Welch’s fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. (1966) gave the world the most iconic bikini shot of all time and the poster image became an iconic moment in cinema history. The poster image of the deer skin bikini in One Million Years B.C. made her an instant pin-up girl. Welch was featured in the studio’s advertising as “wearing mankind’s first bikini” and the bikini was later described as a “definitive look of the 1960’s”. Her role wearing the leather bikini raised Welch to a fashion icon and the photo of her in the bikini became a best-selling pinup poster. One author said, “although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers”. In 2011, Time listed Welch’s B.C. bikini in the “Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture”.
In the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, Star Wars’ Princess Leia Organa was captured by Jabba the Hutt and forced to wear a metal bikini complete with shackles. The costume was made of brass and was so uncomfortable that actress Carrie Fisher described it as “what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell.” The “slave Leia” look is often imitated by female fans at Star Wars conventions. In 1997, 51 years after the bikini’s debut, and 77 years after the Miss America Pageant was founded, contestants were allowed wear two-piece swimsuits, not just the swimsuits (nicknamed “bulletproof vests”) traditionally issued by the pageant. Two of the 17 swimsuit finalists wore two-piece swimsuits, and Erika Kauffman, representing Hawaii, wore the briefest bikini of all and won the swimsuit competition. In 2010, the International Federation of Bodybuilders recognized Bikini as a new competitive category.
In India
Bollywood actress Sharmila Tagore appeared in a bikini in An Evening in Paris (1967), a film mostly remembered for the first bikini appearance of an Indian actress. She also posed in a bikini for the glossy Filmfare magazine. The costume shocked the conservative Indian audience, but it also set a trend of bikini-clad actresses carried forward by Parveen Babi (in Yeh Nazdeekiyan, 1982), Zeenat Aman (in Heera Panna 1973; Qurbani, 1980) and Dimple Kapadia (in Bobby, 1973) in the early 1970’s. Wearing a bikini put her name in the Indian press as one of Bollywood’s ten hottest actresses of all time, and was a transgression of female identity through a reversal of the state of modesty, which functions as a signifier of femininity in Bombay films. By 2005, it became usual for actors in Indian films to change outfits a dozen times in a single song — starting with a chiffon sari and ending up wearing a bikini. But, when Tagore was the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification in 2005, she expressed concerns about the rise of the bikini in Indian films.
Acceptance
In France, Réard’s company folded in 1988, four years after his death. By that year the bikini made up nearly 20% of swimsuit sales, more than any other model in the US. As skin cancer awareness grew and a simpler aesthetic defined fashion in the 1990s, sales of the skimpy bikini decreased dramatically. The new swimwear code was epitomized by surf star Malia Jones, who appeared on the June 1997 cover of Shape Magazine wearing a halter top two-piece for rough water. After the 90’s, however, the bikini came back again. US market research company NPD Group reported that sales of two-piece swimsuits nationwide jumped 80% in two years. On one hand the one-piece made a big comeback in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, on the other bikinis became briefer with the string bikini in the 1970’s and 80’s.
The “-kini family” (as dubbed by author William Safire), including the “-ini sisters” (as dubbed by designer Anne Cole) has grown to include a large number of subsequent variations, often with a hilarious lexicon — string bikini, monokini or numokini (top part missing), seekini (transparent bikini), tankini (tank top, bikini bottom), camikini (camisole top and bikini bottom), hikini, thong, slingshot, minimini, teardrop, and micro. In just one major fashion show in 1985, there were two-piece suits with cropped tank tops instead of the usual skimpy bandeaux, suits that are bikinis in front and one-piece behind, suspender straps, ruffles, and daring, navel-baring cutouts. To meet the fast changing tastes, some of the manufacturers have made a business out of making made-to-order bikinis in around seven minutes. The world’s most expensive bikini, made up of over 150 carats (30 g) of flawless diamonds and worth a massive £20 million, was designed in February 2006 by Susan Rosen.
Actresses in action films like Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003) and Blue Crush (2002) have made the two-piece “the millennial equivalent of the power suit”, according to Gina Bellafonte of The New York Times, On September 9, 1997, Miss Maryland Jamie Fox was the first contestant in 50 years to compete in a two-piece swimsuit to compete in the Preliminary Swimsuit Competition at the Miss America Pageant. PETA used celebrities like Pamela Anderson, Traci Bingham and Alicia Mayer wearing a bikini made of iceberg-lettuce for an advertisement campaign to promote vegetarianism. A protester from Columbia University used a bikini as a message board against a New York City visit by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
By the end of the century, the bikini went on to become the most popular beachwear around the globe, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard due to “the power of women, and not the power of fashion”. As he explains, “The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women”, though one survey tells 85% of all bikinis never touch the water. According to Beth Dincuff Charleston, research associate at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The bikini represents a social leap involving body consciousness, moral concerns, and sexual attitudes.” By the early 2000’s, bikinis had become a US $811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries.
Continued controversies
The bikini remained a hot topic for the news media. In May 2011, Barcelona, Spain made it illegal to wear bikinis in public except in areas near the beaches. Violators face fines of between 120 and 300 euros. In 2012, two students of St. Theresa’s College in Cebu, the Philippines were barred from attending their graduation ceremony for “ample body exposure” because their bikini pictures were posted on Facebook. The students sued the college and won a temporary stay in a regional court.
In May 2013, Cambridge University banned the Wyverns Club of Magdalene College from arranging its annual bikini jelly wrestling. In June 2013, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who also is interested in fashion, produced a bikini for her clothing line that is designed to be worn by girls 4 to 8 years old. She was criticized for sexualizing young children by Claude Knight of Kidscape, a British foundation that strives to prevent child abuse. He commented, “We remain very opposed to the sexualization of children and of childhood … is a great pity that such trends continue and that they carry celebrity endorsement.”
Four women were arrested over the 2013 Memorial Day weekend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for indecent exposure when they wore thong bikinis that exposed their buttocks. In June 2013, the British watchdog agency Advertising Standards Authority banned a commercial that showed men in an office fantasizing about their colleague, played by Pamela Anderson, in a bikini for degrading women.
Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bikini
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_variants
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimsuit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_in_popular_culture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecent_exposure
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecent_exposure_in_the_United_States
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