Bikini Story. Patrik Alac

without the body, meanwhile, is a skin that has been sloughed off, an empty envelope.

      It was precisely in this that Réard showed his genius, for he imbued his bikini with importance right from the start, integrating publicity for his creation within the creation itself. The creation thus promoted itself too. It was not simply an item of clothing but a dream, and the stuff of dreams besides.

      And so, on July 5, 1946, at the very beginning of the Cold War, when an atoll was reduced to ashes and humanity debated the consequences of the coming atomic age, all these considerations were for an instant concentrated in the lens of the camera that took the photo of Micheline Bernardini. The beautiful girl paraded once more in front of the astonished throng, hesitating as it was between applause and loud indignation, and then coquettishly made her exit – but not without one last smile from the back of a changing-room.

      On the following day nothing happened. A scandal was brewing in the city of Paris, still sweltering in its 35 °C (96°F), where the inhabitants crowded in amazing numbers around the edges of the swimming pools. Yet in the press there was no mention whatsoever of the incipient scandal of the previous day, neither in the newspapers nor in the fashion magazines.

      Photograph of participants for the title of the “Most Beautiful Swimmer”. Paris Press, July 6, 1946.

      This was evidently a new kind of scandal altogether, a totally silent one. Nothing was said about it on the following day, the following weeks, the following months, not even the following years. The scandal that was the bikini was just not talked about. Its impact could nonetheless be gauged in the numbers of the articles that shrilly praised all those swimsuits that were different from the “tasteless bikini”. But there was never any picture. Not even a description. You might well believe that the scandal was so serious that the only way to counter it was with utter silence.

      Conversely, during that summer of 1946, everybody was talking about Heim’s sensational Atome. It was the first fashion season after the war and the general mood was to celebrate the return of freedom. The fashion magazines duly gave themselves entirely over to Heim’s work.

      Publicity for Heim’s “revolutionary” two-piece outfits – featured on streamers towed behind light aircraft carriers over France’s Côte d’Azur, and describing the Atome as “the smallest swimsuit in the world” – was at once parried by Réard (who was of course equally astute in the art of advertising). His slogan was “The bikini – the bathing costume even smaller than the smallest swimsuit in the world.” Women and girls on the beaches followed the trend, even if they did not buy Réard’s costumes: it was not difficult, after all, with some deft tucks to adapt a classic two-piece costume at home and turn it into what looked like a bikini that showed almost as much bare skin as the original. It was not until 1954 that Réard was finally allowed advertising space, in the Vogue summer special.

      In fact, the magazine had not remained silent on the subject for all the intervening period. In 1948 it had expressed its own opinions on the thorny matter, commenting, also, that current beachwear was distinctly improving, and even returning to some pretensions of elegance.

      The colours and materials of the extremely brief two-piece costumes were undoubtedly nice to see. But, if we may say so, those who wore them had something of the look of shipwreck survivors, haphazardly covered in scraps and tatters of cloth no larger than a handkerchief.

      Nuclear testing on the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, July 1, 1946.

Symbols

      Our bomb is the blossoming out, the natural expression in all its truth and glory, of our society – just as Plato’s Dialogues were the expression of the ancient Greek polis, as the Coliseum was of ancient Rome, as Raphael’s Madonnas were of Renaissance Italy, as the gondolas were of aristocratic Venice, as the tarantellas were of certain rustic but musical Mediterranean communities… and as the extermination camps are for our petty-minded bureaucracy which seems already to contain a rabid desire for atomic suicide.

      This paragraph, written by Elsa Moranle (“For and Against the Atomic Bomb”, Conference at the Teatro Carignano, Turin), claims to pinpoint the image that identifies and characterizes our times. It is that of the atomic explosion and its mushroom-shaped cloud – an image in which all the mental and technological efforts of the past two and a half centuries of “progress” are concentrated, representing both goal and result. But the words also throw light on another side of our civilization: the accompanying desire in our frenetic activities for self-destruction. Like a poisonous mushroom, the atomic bomb has become the symbol for the last 50 years. It shines like an artificial “orange, wine-red, green, and light grey” sun over empty beaches. When humanity ate for the second time the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, humans got nothing better or more spiritual out of it than the introduction into this “other Eden, demi-Paradise” a series of scientifically applied atomic tests. But what satisfaction there was on the faces of those lit up by the artificial sun! What pleasure there was in finally having at one’s command a weapon that could affect the collective suicide of humanity! What a blessed relief it was to know that it all might no longer exist – the world, humankind, life, dreams and aspirations – and that if things did not measure up and a better future could not be foreseen, one could at least annihilate everything at the press of a button. “An apple from the Garden of Eden” might well describe the circular steel construction designed during World War II and the cheerfully christened Gilda, an image of the perfect woman painted on its outside casting. The term might also be applied to the space-probe sent a few decades later into the depths of the universe containing within it an outline sketch of the human form. Humanity, looking to exterminate itself while yet seeking to preserve the memory of its life-form among distant galaxies, resembles nothing more than a spoiled child who has not received the birthday present longed for, and so in a tantrum destroys all the rest.

      Jacques Heim examines his sketches for the “Maid of Cotton 1962”.

Jacques Heim

      Jacques Heim was born in Paris in 1899, the son of Isidore and Jeanne Heim, Polish-Jewish immigrants who had already acquired French nationality and set up, in their home at 48 Rue Laffitte, a fashion house under the name Heim. It soon counted among its clientele Madame de Toulouse-Lautrec, Madame Claude Debussy, Her Majesty Queen Victoria-Eugenia of Spain (wife of King Alfonso XIV) and a number of other celebrated women. After World War I, Isidore Heim began to produce fur capes made of rabbit skin – a significant innovation in the world of fashion – and thereby attracted the custom of another doyenne of contemporary society, Coco Chanel, who greatly admired his work.

      In time, and following an education biased towards design, Jacques Heim found himself entrusted with the side of the business devoted to “young fashion”. He presented his first collection in 1931. Three years later, the Heim fashion house moved to the Champs Élysées and also opened junior branches in London, Biarritz, Cannes, Deauville and Rio de Janeiro. In August 1936, the shop transferred to the Avenue Matignon, which became the registered address of Jacques Heim’s many publications, notably the Revue Heim, followed by the Gazette Matignon.

      Just before World War II, Jacques Heim tried to escape across the Channel to England, but was interned in Spain until the end of the hostilities. In 1949, having returned to Paris, he set up a company called Parfums Jacques Heim and, until his death in 1967, remained one of the pivotal personalities in the Paris fashion world. His work is generally considered a model of classic elegance.

      Particularly important was his major contribution in the field of beachwear and summer clothes. He was the first to utilize cotton in haute couture in 1934 and dreamed up a beach ensemble inspired by the Tahitian pareo (skirt or loincloth). In 1946, he created the two-piece Atome – since unjustly forgotten – which might certainly be regarded as the immediate precursor to the bikini.

      Jacqueline Maraney (20), secretary, winner of the “Most Beautiful Swimmer” competition on June 26, 1948.