The ballyhoo that collected around all the at the 2023 was, in hindsight, a little ironic. Yes, the red carpet that stretches along the Croisette is famed for its archaic dress code – leaving , and at the mercy of prescriptivist film nerds for daring to participate in something as mild as a “peek-a-boo” bra trend – but it was Cannes that first beamed the bikini (of all the non-black-tie-appropriate items) into public consciousness. Though evidence of bikini-style bralettes can be found as early as Ancient Rome – there are mosaics in the Sicilian Villa Romana del Casale depicting women exercising in two-piece garments dating back to 400AD – there is still debate over who invented the modern bikini – ie, swimsuit separates cut to the proportions of lingerie – with both the couturier Jacques Heim and mechanical engineer Louis Réard claiming to have been the first to have launched the silhouette on the French Riviera during the summer of 1946.
But regardless of who created it first – for what it’s worth, Réard owned the actual patent – there are some styles that can only be born from a specific moment in time. This one being of post-war emancipation, when the convergent forces of A) wanting to achieve a sun tan and B) wanting to show some skin became newly acceptable among socially progressive young people. It took a while for the bikini to pick up outside of the more laissez-faire environs of southern France – the 1934 navel-banning Hays Code prohibit.