The word bikini has rather an interesting etymology. Unlike the word swimsuit, which is entirely functional and descriptive in its purpose, the word bikini implies much more about the bikini’s history than it does the bikini’s purpose.
Most scholars assume that the bikini swimsuit was named after the famous Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. While it may seem strange for the birthplace of the actual bikini swimsuit to be in France and the birthplace of the name bikini to be in the South Pacific, these two areas of the world actually had quite a bit in common during the historical time period of the introduction of the bikini.
When the bikini was introduced to the world in 1946, World War II had just ended the spring before, and the world was still rollicking from the horrendous nature of that war. After detonating the controversial atomic bomb on two Japanese cities to end the Pacific war, the United States was setting off further test bombs on the Marshall Islands during that same summer. Needless to say, the destructive power of the atomic bomb was still quite a shock to people around the world. While Jacques Heim and Louis Reard were simultaneously inventing and marketing their own versions of the bikini swimsuit, people all over the world were marveling at the awesome power of the atomic bomb.
No one knows for sure whether Louis Reard was inspired enough by the atomic bomb detonations in the Bikini Atoll to christen his swimsuit the bikini or if he chose the name at random. Whatever the reason, the name bikini stuck as the official title of the midriff-baring, two-piece swimsuit. Many etymologists have assumed that Reard believed his swimsuit creation would create a shock equal in its reverberation to that of the atomic bomb (as it proved to do in the following years). The term bikini has now become so lodged in the vocabulary of swimsuits that several new types of swimsuits have spawned from it, including the bandini, tankini, camikini, and monokini.
Most scholars assume that the bikini swimsuit was named after the famous Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. While it may seem strange for the birthplace of the actual bikini swimsuit to be in France and the birthplace of the name bikini to be in the South Pacific, these two areas of the world actually had quite a bit in common during the historical time period of the introduction of the bikini.
When the bikini was introduced to the world in 1946, World War II had just ended the spring before, and the world was still rollicking from the horrendous nature of that war. After detonating the controversial atomic bomb on two Japanese cities to end the Pacific war, the United States was setting off further test bombs on the Marshall Islands during that same summer. Needless to say, the destructive power of the atomic bomb was still quite a shock to people around the world. While Jacques Heim and Louis Reard were simultaneously inventing and marketing their own versions of the bikini swimsuit, people all over the world were marveling at the awesome power of the atomic bomb.
No one knows for sure whether Louis Reard was inspired enough by the atomic bomb detonations in the Bikini Atoll to christen his swimsuit the bikini or if he chose the name at random. Whatever the reason, the name bikini stuck as the official title of the midriff-baring, two-piece swimsuit. Many etymologists have assumed that Reard believed his swimsuit creation would create a shock equal in its reverberation to that of the atomic bomb (as it proved to do in the following years). The term bikini has now become so lodged in the vocabulary of swimsuits that several new types of swimsuits have spawned from it, including the bandini, tankini, camikini, and monokini.
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