material 80% antron
nylon & 15% lycra spandex lining,100% antron nylon.
(This item has a hygienic protection label attached)
The high-tech lycra
material used in our bikinis
avoid transparencies, avoid the crossing of sand
grains,
dries quicker and molds to the body's shape.
Delivery
Only 20 days and you don't pay freight charges
within the continental United States. Orders outside
the continental US may incur additional charges.
Ask us for
our complete catalogue that
can be used as reference for your next orders.
Guarantee
Our bikini swimsuits are among the best ones in
Brazil. We offer a complete satisfaction guarantee . If for any reason
you are not 100% satisfied with any model, the item(s)
may be returned for exchange or credit refund. Shipping and
handling charges are not refundable.
Full information
Please access now our complete bikini website:
Brazil Bikini
Wholesale
How the Bikini changed the world
by Steve Rushin
If you happen to be the only person-who really
does read the articles in the swimsuit issue, then
you already know that 1996 witnessed the 50th
anniversary of the invention of the bikini (from the
Latin bi, meaning "two," and kini, meaning "square
inches of Lycra").
What you may not have considered is this: We now
stand poised at a historical crossroad, a crucial
cleavage in the history of the swimsuit. Nineteen
ninety-seven is the dawn of a new age, the first
year of the second half of the Bikini Century. This
raises several vexing questions, not the least of
which are, Where is the bikini heading? Can I follow
it there? And if so, will I have to wear sunglasses
and pretend I'm not looking?
For a 1957 Life photo shoot, Jayne Mansfield was as
buoyant as a bevy of bikinied water bottles
photograph by Allan Grant/Life Magazine/
With so much at stake, I was asked to compose the
following bikini lines, to offer these bikini
waxings. Please-allow me to bikini brief you.
I am eminently qualified to do so, having just
screened the actual motion pictures Bikini Beach,
Bikini Squad, Bikini Drive-in, The Ghost in the
Invisible Bikini, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Stocks
and Blondes (um, it had a bikini on the box) and
It's a Bikini World. To which the following pages
will wholeheartedly attest: It certainly is a Bikini
World.
In this issue you will circumnavigate that world
on a navel expedition more epic than Magellan's.
Since last September, SI has endeavored to visit
every important port in Bikinidom, or to
burn-and-peel trying. I was appointed Official
Bikini Researcher, which only sounds as if it
belongs on a T-shirt sold in truck stops, next to
those declaring I'M WITH STUPID or TAKE ME DRUNK,
I'M HOME. In fact, my work would address some
serious swimsuit issues and require exhausting
excursions to centers of swimwear scholarship. Which
is to say, St. Tropez.
St. Tropez is home to Club 55, a bistro
frequented by bikini icon Brigitte Bardot, who
helped bring the suit to prominence, as did pinup
girl Diana Dors, who in '55 sported a mink number at
the Venice Film Festival. "Nineteen fifty-five was
to the bikini what '54 was to black school children
and '56 was to Hungarian freedom fighters," says my
colleague Alexander Wolff, whose story on Monaco
begins on page 36 and whose company-mandated
psychiatric examination begins on Tuesday. Good luck,
Alex!
Though close, the French Riviera is not quite
ground zero in Bikini World. That distinction
belongs to the actual ground zero itself: to Bikini,
the Pacific atoll on which A-bombs were tested in
1946. That year, Louis R?rd, a French automotive
engineer who was running his mother's lingerie
business, named his new two-piece, atom-sized
swimsuit for the test site, and the rest is (revisionist)
history: The bikini was born.
Thanks to the combination of
surf, song and skin, it was a bikini world in '67
courtesy of Joe Russo.
In fact, mosaics found in the fourth-century
villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily are festooned
with women wearing bikinis. And cavewomen wore fur
bikinis (and mascara) as early as the Stone Age, if
the appearance of Raquel Welch in One Million Years
B.C. hews to prehistorical fact. And who's to say it
doesn't? But that is neither here nor there.
Bidding adieu to the Riviera, we next dropped
anchor off the coast of Venezuela, spending several
buenas noches on Los Roques. There, E.M. Swift went
fishing with supermodel Niki Taylor. This, too, was
an epochal event: The first time in swimsuit issue
history that a fishnet was used for-get this-actual
fishing.
I likewise spent some time angling, though this
regrettably had nothing to do with fish. It happened
in Malibu at the rented beach house of three
swimsuit models. In accordance with the restraining
order filed against me in California, what occurred
there can be recounted only in a fictionalized form,
and I do so on page 200. All parties are forbidden
to comment further. Can we just move on?
Very well. You will notice that this issue is
peopled with professional athletes, as well as
models in various stages of undress. (By the way:
Undress is believed to be a contraction of Ursula
Andress, who as a Bond girl named Honeychile Rider
wore history's most memorable bikini in Dr. No. It
was accompanied by a hip holster that held a hunting
knife and generally looked more in keeping with J.R.
Rider than H. Rider. But I digress.)
In Hawaii, for instance, we photographed members
of the women's beach volleyball tour. They are among
the few professional athletes to actually compete in
bikinis, including, of course, the mysterious
Swedish Bikini Team members, whose "sport" was about
the only thing never made explicit by those beer
commercials in which they starred.
Of course, Hawaii itself is not so much
associated with bikinis as it is with grass skirts.
So we commissioned a designer to combine the two
concepts. The result is worn on page 194 by Chandra
North (in a grass bikini, by Mother Nature, $5 a
square foot). We believe it is the future of
swimwear. But seriously: "Who did design the grass
bikini?" I asked swimsuit issue editor Elaine Farley.
"Monsanto?"
"Moschino," she corrected me.
In 1964 the two-piece became a fixture on
dormitory walls around the country with Babette
March's appearance on SI's first swimsuit cover
photograph by J. Frederick Smith
I am not making this up.
The suit was "grown" by the Italian clothing
design firm of Moschino, which suggests that you
wash on gentle cycle and lay flat to dry.
While looking into bikinis, as it were, I
happened upon the seaweed bikini, macram?bikini,
vinyl bikini, string bikini, mink bikini, rubber
bikini, monokini, Brian Hyland's Itsy Bitsy Teenie
Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Chanel's infamous "eye-patch"
bikini and the irrepressible tanga, "thong" or "dental-floss"
bikini, responsible for the crack epidemic on
Brazilian beaches. But none were so intriguing as
the grass bikini, and I for one think we blew a rare
opportunity in neglecting to have Steffi Graf pose
in her best surface, rather than on it.
That's right. Now it can be told: Graf is our
Fr?lein February, having been photographed in a
double-secret-probationary shoot in Cabo San Lucas,
Mexico, last December. Everyone agrees that she
looks wunderbar, which reminds me: Wonderbra model
Eva Herzigova also helps us pay homage to Bikini
Atoll by barely wearing a bikini atall, on page 134.
How's that? You say you'd like to turn to those
photos straightaway? Then I'll cut my remarks short.
I had so much more to tell you about swimsuits, but
it's obvious we're not on the same page here. (Probably
in the most literal sense of that phrase. You turned
to Tyra Banks 10 minutes ago, didn't you?)
What's the use? You say, "Moschino"; I say, "Monsanto."
You say, "Wonderbra"; I say, "Wunderbar." Moschino,
Monsanto, Wonderbra, wunderbar: Let's call the whole
thing off.
Historical timeline of the Bikini Bathing suit
From People Magazine
(A revealing history of the timeless two-piece)
1946: An explosive year. Bikini Atoll
becomes no Bikini at all. In Paris, engineer Louis
Reard quietly unveils a swimsuit of the same name.
The world yawns.
1951: Bikinis, perhaps seen as an unfair
advantage to the wearer (and as potentially
dangerous to the health of some judges) are banned
from beauty pageants after the Miss World Contest.
The tasteful one-piece reigns supreme.
1957:
Bikini-clad Brigitte Bardot frolics in "And God
Created Woman," creating a hot market for the
swimwear. Coincidentally, Hollywood markets 3D
glasses in theaters.
1960: Brian Hyland sings "Itsy Bitsy
Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," triggering a
bikini-buying spree among American teens.
1963: The bikini meets a challenge in the
generous form of Annette Funicello. The
ex-mouseketeer's "Beach Party," with singer Frankie
Avalon, leads to six sequels, including the
memorably titled "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" (in
1966). No special effects were used.
1964: The bi- ("two") kini becomes the
mono- ("one") kini, in the eyes of designer Rudi
Gernreich. The Vatican denounces the topless garb.
An unrepentant Gernreich sells more than 3,000 suits
in less than a season in Europe. More Americans go
abroad.
1966: The bikini grows fur in "One Million
Years B.C.," which catapults comely cavegirl Raquel
Welch to stardom despite mixed reviews of the saggy
screen saga.
1970s: Rio and St. Tropez produce the
Tanga suit-- also called the Thong, the string
bikini or "dental floss." The uncomfortable design
becomes de rigeur for teen posters, muscle car
magazines and boxing ring girls who announce the
rounds.
1983: Carrie Fisher, as Princess Leia,
wears an ornate version of the bikini (studded
collar optional) in "Return of the Jedi." Even Yoda
notices. The film is the most successful of the
George Lucas trilogy.
1993: Score one for the "sports bikini."
The hugging halter-top design becomes the rage,
thanks to Volleyball queen Gabrielle Reece and MTV.
History of the Bikini Bathing Suit
Louis Reard (ray-YARD) had this problem. He had
designed Something that would stir the masses. But
he needed a name for it, something exotic, bold, and
eye opening. Four days before he was to show the
world his new bikini in Paris, the U.S. Military
provided him with a name. They exploded a nuclear
device near several small islands in the Pacific
known as the "Bikini Atoll". On July 5th, 1945, he
unveiled the bikini. lthough he would later claim he
named the bikini after the islands and not the
atomic blast, he was clearly taking advantage of a
"hot topic". Another Frenchmen, Jacques Heim, had
created his own two piece bathing suit, which he
called "The Atome", and he described it as "The
world's smallest bathing suit.
Reard called his "Smaller than the world's
smallest bathing suit."
Reard's "bikini" was so small, in fact, that no
Parisian models at the time would wear it on the
runway. He hired Micheline Bernardini, who had no
qualms about strolling around in a bikini, seeing as
her day job was a nude dancer at the Casino de
Paris. Bernardini was not what you'd a classic
beauty, but after photos of her in a reclining pose
hit the press, she was swamped with fan mail, close
to 50,000 letters.
Two piece suits weren't new. As part of wartime
rationing, the U.S. Government, in 1943, ordered a
10 percent reduction in the fabric used in woman's
swimwear. Off went the skirt panel, and out came the
bare midriff. At beaches across the country, men
paid special attention to women doing their
patriotic duty. But Reard pushed the envelope. He
shrunk his suit down to 30 inches of fabric -
basically a bra top and two inverted triangles of
cloth connected by string - and put the navel on
center stage.
The world took notice. In Catholic ountries -
Spain, Portugal, and Italy - The bikini was banned.
Decency leagues pressured Hollywood to keep it out
of the movies. One writer said it's a "two piece
bathing which reveals everything about a girl except
for her mothers maiden name." Movie star Esther
Williams who probably was seen in a two piece
bathing suit by more people than anyone in the world,
once said: "A bikini is a thoughtless act".
It's
not clear whether she was talking about the bikini
or the thought of wearing one. Reard's firm did it's
part to fan the fantasies by proclaiming that a two
piece wasn't a bikini "unless it could be pulled
through a wedding ring." In the '50's Brigitte
Bardot did wonders for business- But not in modest
America. Here it remained an invitation to scandal.
As recently as 1957, Modern Girl magazine sniffed,
"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.
By 1960 America was ready for new frontiers,
including, it seemed, great expanses of bare flesh.
That year pop singer Brian Hyland immortalized the
suit with his song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow
Polka Dot Bikini." Three years later "Beach Party",
the first in a series of Annette Funicello / Frankie
Avalon flicks with a recurring theme of women
dancing in bikinis, hit the big screen.
Times and tastes change, however, and just as
importantly, people age. Through the '80s and early
'90s, the bkini sales began to slide. Sales dropped
to less than a third of the women's bathing suit
market. in 1988 Reard's company folded.
The bikini, however, appears to be making a
comeback. Sales are up! Some cite the "Baywatch"
factor - or perhaps the Internet itself. Recently,
bikinis have been getting even more skimpy with the
popularity of
thongs, it seems to some that the less you wear
the better. Also
tan-through swimwear is getting very popular.
Rio Fashion Week
History of
the Bikini Bathing Suit
