Wonder Woman of the Week: The Bikini

This week’s spotlight may have little to do with Wonder Woman, and isn’t even a living thing. This week’s spotlight is a symbol of femininity, independence, and a living artifact of women’s rights dating all the way back to Ancient Greece. This week’s spotlight might not be human, but it still played and continues to play a major part in international feminism and comes with its own biography. The Wonder Woman of the Week is the bikini swimsuit.

Now bear with me for a moment here. Many people might be surprised by a swimsuit being a symbol of women’s rights, but the two-piece attire has been a central figure in the women’s rights movement of the 20th Century. The clothing style goes back a lot further than that however. The women’s two-piece swimsuit dates back at least as far as 1400 BC when women would wear the garments in everyday situations in Greece and Rome. A Roman mosaic from Villa Romana Del Casale in Sicily reveals a scene of two women in two-piece swimsuits playing some type of ball sport on the beach (Beach volleyball anyone?). [1]

After Christianity took hold in Europe, women’s clothing options were forcibly more modest and wearing revealing clothing like the bikini because outlawed. For one and a half millennia, women were forced to wear cumbersome garments to the beach until a sports rivalry in Australia ended all of that. Australian competitive swimmer Annette Kellerman (a Wonder Woman in her own right) was making waves with her career successes. She was even able to help convince the International Olympic Committee to allow women to compete in swimming events at the Olympics in the early 20th Century. Kellerman’s biggest moment came in 1907 when while wearing a one-piece swim suit was arrested on the beaches of Boston for indecency. Kellerman claimed the suit was needed for better athletic performance. While the police were not convinced, a fashion designer was. [2]

In 1913, Carl Janzten introduced the two-piece bathing suit so that female Olympic swimmers could perform better in the pool. The suit was made of swimming shorts and a shirt that fit closely enough to cause a major scandal in the fashion world. When clothing was rationed during WWII, Janzten’s suit became smaller and smaller and more and more women were making the two-piece suit their beach attire of choice. Two more fashion designers altered the design in 1946 and named their two-piece suit after a series of Pacific Islands recently in the newspapers- the Bikini Atoll and thus the modern bikini was invented. Jacques Heim named his suit the atome because he deemed it the smallest swimming suit in the world and Louis Reard named his after the Bikini Atoll a recent site of atomic bomb testing. [3]

When the bikini was first introduced, the only woman willing to model the suit was a French stripper named Micheline Bernardini. [4Because of its provocative size, the bikini made headlines across the world as being the garment of choice for beach harlots. Spain and Italy both passed laws banning the bikini and in the United States the bikini was repressed until the 1960’s when Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” hit the radios. [5] While men around the world were infuriated by the suit, women loved it. Screen actresses like Bridgette Bardot and Marylin Monroe helped make the suit popular among teenage girls in the United States and surfing films of the 1960’s brought the fashion to the silver screen. Men began changing their mind about the swimsuit. [6]

In 1964, Sports Illustrated published their first ever Swimsuit Issue when editor Andre Laguerre could find no sports worth writing about. He asked fashion reporter Jule Campbell to help fill space in his magazine. Campbell chose to write about the bikini, asked her friend Babette March to model the swimwear and the annual “Swimsuit Issue” was born. [4] At about the same time, actress Ursula Andress portrayed the bikini clad Honey Ryder in the James Bond film Dr. No. In 1983, actress Carrie Fischer brought the bikini to the Star Wars franchise with a golden bikini which continues to be a popular suit among cosplayers today. [3]

Men were taking the bikini and making it a symbol for sexuality, but were missing the whole reason why women wore the swimsuit. For men the suit represented sex, but for women the suit represented freedom and confidence. Swimwear designer Malia Mills encouraged women of all ages and body types to wear the bikini and beach volleyballer Gabrielle Reece stated confidence was the sole prerequisite for wearing the bikini. [7]

In the ancient Mediterranean, women wore two-piece garments without a second thought. After one and a half millennia, women were forced to wear form-hiding clothing even in the hottest beach retreats. Due to war ration, Olympic athletes, and screen actresses, the bikini returned in the 20th Century to a mixed crowd. Even today, the bikini is a controversial topic in feminism. For men, the bikini continues to be seen as a symbol of sexuality. The bikini is a larger symbol however of confidence, self-determination, and a woman’s right to chose what she wears. While I am in no way claiming the contemporary Swimsuit Issues from Sports Illustrated are empowering for women, what this blog is saying is that even an immodest swimsuit can be a symbol for women’s strength.

Ashworth, Richard. “Roman Gymnasts.” 4th Century CE. [Photograph of a mosaic]. Time Magazine. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1908353_1905442,00.html

“Annette Kellerman- the modern swimmer for modern women.” 2016. Australia.gov. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/annette-kellerman

“The History of the Bikini.” 22 April 2012. Elle Magazine. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.elle.com/fashion/g2906/the-history-of-the-bikini-654900/?slide=3

“The Evolution of the Bikini.” 2016. Time Magazine. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1908353_1905441,00.html

“1946 Bikini Introduced.” 5 July 2015. History.com. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bikini-introduced

Yotka, Steff. “Summer Inventions: A Brief History of the Bikini.” 8 July 2014. Biography.com. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.biography.com/news/history-of-the-bikini

Turner, Julia. “A Brief History of the Bikini.” 3 July 2015. Slate Magazine. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/fashion/2013/07/history_of_the_bikini_how_it_came_to_america.html