Fashion Past: The Bikini

Grandin Donovan has penned a fine review over at Refinery 29 of the 60 year old bikini:

Brigitte Bardot on the silver screen. Sophia Loren on the sands of Cannes. Raquel Welch in One Million B.C. Landmarks in modern sex, united by two triangles and a navel-baring brief—the bikini. Few articles of clothing have inspired as much emotion as the bikini: male desire, female envy, feminist and prudish indignation, a wearer’s self-esteem—or vulnerability. In bringing more and more flesh into the public eye, the gradual acceptance of the bikini is not just the story of a new style gaining ground, but of a sea change in social sensibilities that allowed women, more than any time before, to show off their sensuality with confidence, and challenge the world to look away.

Refinery29: Independent Style: Defined and Refined