Itsy bitsy fifty

It's hard to believe but on Friday it will be 50 years since the first itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini changed the look of summer forever.

The inventor, civil engineer Louis Reard, created the most famous two-piece swimsuit in Paris and it was launched on July 5, 1946. But he could hardly have thought that his creation would still be a well-worn fashion item 50 years later.

His bikini was made of cotton printed with newspaper articles and could be fitted into a 10cm cube or drawn through a wedding ring. The press predicted that the new fashion invention would last just over a fortnight!

Despite its lukewarm reception, the bikini has gone from strength to strength and is now as much a part of the sunshine holiday scene as ice-cream and suntan lotion.

The bikini, named after Pacific atoll where the first post-war atomic bomb was exploded, detonated outbursts of disapproval and rejection.

Many were up in arms by such licentiousness in fashion and eyed the bikini with disgust, claiming the design was immoral.

One person who remembers its introduction is Mrs Honora Leigh, 76, of Peel Close, Blackburn. She said: "I thought they were marvellous. It was a case of who could have the best one and a lot of women wore them on the beach. But I wasn't allowed to wear one when they came out because I was married and my parents were still very strict."

As late as 1957, the magazine Modern Girl wrote, "It is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini, since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing."

Many public swimming baths forbade the wearing of the sensational garment. Edna Williams, 74, a resident of Blakewater Lodge Old People's Home, in Blackburn, said: "I had an orange and black bikini. It was very, very brief. Little bottoms and a lovely top. People thought bikinis were nice but a bit too daring."

Ada Gibson, 81, of Grange Street, Clayton-le-Moors, said: "The bikini was very shocking but it was like anything else - mini skirts and short tennis skirts were treated with the same reaction at first. But the bikini went from showing ankles to showing everything and it was a hell of a lot for people to take in.

"People who followed fashion were going to wear them no matter what anybody else thought. People got used to them, although they went smaller and smaller. They could be as small as a sycamore leaf now and people would not bat an eyelid!" The '60s heralded a breakthrough for the bikini. "Briefs" stretching from the navel to the thigh, often sporting a frill or skirt for extra camouflage, and hipster briefs were in, although the top was still generously cut and stiff with plastic inserts. Leading swimwear company Triumph introduced its first bikini in 1964.

Mini bikinis were the rage of the '70s. They were garments without an underwire or insert in sight and held together by a few shoestrings which enabled women to take up the new aim of the decade - an all-over sun tan.

Sylvia McFarlane, 49, of Sandown Road, Haslingden, donned a bikini in the late 60s and early '70s, but believes the two-piece does little to flatter the female figure.

She said: "The only reason I wore a bikini was because they were fashionable at the time and everybody was wearing them but I don't think they are very flattering."

Decadence and freedom was the mood in the '80s, which proved that minuscule bikinis could get even smaller. Just as the world was getting used to the daring new style the String came along with the minimum of material at the front - and nothing behind!

To add insult to injury, tops were carelessly abandoned and topless became the order of the day. Ada said: "In my day, women covered themselves up and they couldn't even sit with their legs open on the beach. I was skin and bone when I was younger and would have been fashionable today in a tiny bikini."

However, the pendulum has swung back in the '90s and some, although not all, women are covering up again, renewing the popularity of the long-neglected one-piece.

But the outlook for the bikini is still promising.

Scores of sun worshippers ensure that it will be forever a fashion force and hundreds of new ideas such as metallic space-age fabrics and see-through mesh inserts continually add a new dimension for the two-piece.

Ada added: "They are still very popular today because nobody can match them with any other garment. Women can look beautiful in them but they have to have the right figure. I like the fluorescent colours that you can see a mile off but I wear a costume these days!"

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