It must be said that, in the last few seasons, contemporary designers have actually been borrowing the sleeve silhouettes not strictly from Victorian designs, but from several different decades, starting from the 1820s. Sleeves were indeed the key details of Romantic dresses and they were mainly large, puffed and full.
Open any fashion dictionary and you will spot Marie sleeves (full from shoulder to wrist but with the fullness controlled by bands tied at intervals that created puff between them); gigot (French word for the back leg of an animal; this sleeve is indeed also defined "leg o'mutton") and demi-gigot sleeves (the former gradually tapered to a fitted cuff; the latter was full from the shoulder to the elbow and became fitted at the elbow and down the wrist), and idiot or imbecile sleeve (very full from shoulder to wrist where it gathered into a fitted cuff and called like that because it was supposedly based on the construction of the sleeves in the jackets used to restrain and confine the mad).
The current collection by A.W.A.K.E. features quite a few tops with sleeve shapes clearly borrowed from the past.
The saddest thing about this trend? Well, apart from the fact that we are not inventing anything new but borrowing from the past and endlessly remixing it, we should remember that, at times, fun terms were coined for each sleeve innovation.
When fashion critics indeed considered a style ridiculous they would come up with silly nicknames (see the "imbecile sleeves") and fashion cartoons about ridiculous styles abounded. In a nutshell, apart from not creating anything new in fashion, we are also looking back at the past for names and definition, as fantasy seems to have drained and fashion critics are too scared to call a spade a spade.
What you should do if you're crazy about the sleeve trend? Buy a vintage pattern (check out the Truly Victorian pattern series for example, there are plenty of them on Amazon) and, well, create your own fantastic sleeves, making up a name for the style you have invented. Whatever the result, you'll be more original than the rest of us, wearing tops and dresses with the "new imbecile" sleeve. What's the "new imbecile" sleeve, you're asking? The sort of silhouette favoured by somebody dressed up like in the mid-1800s but pretending to be conceptually living in the future.
It’s difficult not to be fascinated by superhero comic books or vintage magazines such as sci-fi pulp publication Planet Stories.
The former got us used to superhuman beings or mutants living the most extraordinary adventures, while the latter often featured interplanetary stories and their covers were characterized by sensual pin-up-like vixens and amazons fighting against alien creatures, running away from monsters or floating in space wearing improbable and revealing outfits.
Inspired by these magazines, space opera stories (melodramatic and romantic adventures set in outer space) and by the futuristic weapons and accessories from '60s films adapted from comic books such as Modesty Blaise, I came up with this leather bracer that incorporates broken bits of amethyst druses, a sort of hint at space rocks and meteorites.
Original art pages from Starbrand (Issue 6, 1987), penciled by John Romita Jr and inked by Rick Bryant, and Catwoman (Issue 37, 1996), penciled by Jim Balent and inked by Bob Smith, were employed as further inspirations (and temporary borrowed from Kutmusic's private collection).
It is always exciting to see how museums organize parallel events to the exhibitions they are hosting that can help visitors developing further specific subjects and themes.
In a previous post we looked for example at "The New Human", a film and video-based project curated by Joa Ljungberg and organized at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. As you may remember from that post, the event explores the human condition - and subtler or darker themes such as living, socialising and controlling each other - in our fast-changing world.
Tomorrow, instead, the Moderna Museet Malmö and Malmö University will launch The New Human Symposium, featuring speakers Patricia MacCormack, Sverre Raffnsøe, and Susan Kozel and with the world premiere of a brand new 16-mm film by Ursula Mayer - "Atom Spirit".
While the symposium explores what it really means to be human in our era of profound social, political, economic and technological changes, Mayer looks in her film at the boundary between biology and technology.
In Mayer's practice (but in our world as well…) languages, genders, organisms and environments dissolve and transform, while different materials come together to form new compounds.
Set in Trinidad and Tobago, "Atom Spirit" (2016) features an evolutionary geneticist played by transsexual actress Valentijn de Hingh, clad in a sort of futuristic space suit.
Faced with the imminent threat of mass extinction, the geneticist collects DNA from all forms of life in order to create a cryogenically frozen Ark.
In her film Mayer takes viewers through forests and lagoons, antiquated labs (these artificial environments where a new humanity can be discerned or created seem to be the main space of choice for the artists included in the Moderna Museet events - so please designers take note as there may be hiding a trend behind all this interest for labs...) and illegal, underground LGBTQ communities.
In this way Mayer links human relationships with the environment, and transforms genetics from a complex discipline into an intriguing investigation into a future in which mutating hybrids suspended between organisms and machines or enhanced by information technology may be the norm rather than the exception.
"Atom Spirit" will be shown daily from 30 August to 4 September 2016 as part of the exhibition "The New Human - Knock, Knock, Is Anyone Home?" at the Moderna Museet Malmö.
In the last few years we have seen many museums digitalizing their costume archives and making them freely available to all of us. In the meantime, fashion exhibitions have multiplied, with institutions all over the world offering events related to costumes, textiles, and designers.
Though beautiful and clever, fashion exhibitions or digitalised images at times leave you passively staring: yes, you learn more about a garment and its history, the materials it was made of and even the previous owner who may have donated it, but, quite often, you are left with an exhibition catalogue, or with beautiful pictures that you can download for free and maybe share on social media or use to illustrate an essay if you're a researcher.
Click here and you will be able to see a selection of pieces from the museum costume and textile collection and download for free their patterns, created by theatrical costume designer and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo professor Thomas John Bernard and assistant curator Clarissa M. Esguerra. This project actually started in 2011 as a sort of extension to a fashion exhibition held at the museum and it's continuing with patterns being added after more exciting exhibitions take place at LACMA.
The choice is wide and at present includes menswear with a Macaroni suit from 1770 and a zoot suit from the early 1940s, while women's wear boasts a 1790 redingote and lounging pajamas by Parisian couture house Callot Soeurs.
One of the most intriguing pieces remains a Japanese man's overcoat (Tonbi, 1925–35): based on the Western Inverness coat, it consists in a sleeveless overcoat with a hip-length shoulder cape with enlarged arms openings from the shoulder line to the waistline to accommodate the wide sleeves of a kimono.
This style was fashionable during the Taishō (1912–26) and early Shōwa (1926–89) periods among intellectuals, professionals, and the wealthy, who often added a Western style hat and walking stick or umbrella to their kimono ensemble.
The patterns on the LACMA site are very useful as they can help students experimenting and understating a bit better how certain historical pieces were constructed or how to create a specific silhouette and maybe add volume or alter proportions, or how cross-cultural influences generated innovations in fashion. But the patterns can also inspire amateurs to try their hand at a fashion project using scraps of fabrics or even paper (and maybe make very fashionable paper dolls...).
In a nutshell, LACMA should definitely be praised for encouraging people to actively learn more from their exhibitions, taking the themes and contents of their events further in an intelligent way.
In one of the tracks featured in his 1994 album "Paris", Malcolm McLaren wondered 'Who The Hell is Sonia Rykiel?' Yet, he definitely knew who she was since the voice of the French designer was widely sampled in the track and perfectly came to represent the spirit of Paris. Rykiel - known for her trademark striped sweaters and for embodying the freedom of French style, attitude and approach in her collections - died Thursday at her home in Paris from complications of Parkinson's disease. She was 86 and had been diagnosed with the disease more than 15 years ago.
Born Sonia Flis in Neuilly-sur-Seine in May 1930, from a Russian mother and a Romanian father, Rykiel started her fashion career dressing the window displays of a Parisian textile store.
In 1953 she married Sam Rykiel, owner of the boutique Laura and they had two children, Nathalie and Jean-Philippe (she is survived by both of them). Her first creation was a maternity dress she made when she was pregnant with her second child because she couldn't find anything she liked.
But her ground-breaking design remains a pullover inspired by the classic "poor boy" sweater (View this photo). Elle put it on the cover and her knit became a landmark design of the early Sixties, adored by many celebrities of the time including Anouk Aimée, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Lauren Bacall (who donated most of her Rykiel garments to the Met Museum) and Audrey Hepburn.
According to the fashion legend, Hepburn bought 14 sweaters by Rykiel in different colours and she was also photographed in 1966 by William Klein for American Vogue wearing a navy blue wool jersey shift with bike-racer sleeves in red, white and blue stripes with a matching tam o' shanter.
In 1964 a Laura boutique opened in Galeries Lafayette: four years later Rykiel divorced her husband and opened her first self-named shop on the Rue de Grenelle in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area. The creative '60s and the 1968 youth rebellion were great times for Rykiel: her sweaters - that she suggested to wear with no bra underneath - encouraged freedom while her style was in general whimsical and eccentric.
In 1969, she opened an in-store shop at Galeries Lafayette, while her clothes were also stocked at Bloomingdale's and Henri Bendel in New York. In the same year Britt Ekland was photographed by Gianni Penati for the April Vogue cover wearing Rykiel's gold Lurex turtleneck.
In the '80s Rykiel also redecorated some of Paris' most luxurious hotels including the Hotel de Crillon in 1982, and the Hotel Lutetia and its brasserie in 1985. In the same year Andy Warhol painted four portraits of the designer and portrayed her in some of his famous Polaroids.
In 1994, apart from featuring on Malcolm McLaren's album "Paris" Rykiel inspired Robert Altman's film Prêt-à-Porter, but her voice was also sampled by Hugues Le Bars in his album "Zinzin" (1995).
Daughter Nathalie, who first worked as a model for the house, became its managing and artistic director in 1995, and its creative director the next year. She created a children's wear and a diffusion line, launching also shoes and accessories.
Nathalie also designed a clothing collection for La Redoute in 1995 and a lingerie line for H&M in 2009, that was followed by an accessories and knitwear collection in 2010. In the meantime, the house had launched the Rykiel Homme collection (1990-2009) and Rykiel Woman (2002), a lingerie and erotica shop on the Rue de Grenelle.
Nathalie Rykiel celebrated the company's 40th anniversary in 2008, asking a group of designers - among them Jean Paul Gaultier, Alber Elbaz, Martin Margiela, and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac - to create dresses in homage to the Rykiel style. In the same year a retrospective at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs included 200 outfits by the designer.
In 2008, Rykiel was named grand commander of the legion for lifetime service to fashion by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but she had previously been named a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1985.
Rykiel was also a writer: in 1979 she published a novel in diary form entitled Et Je la Voudrais Nue (And I Would Like Her Nude); in 1996 she published an erotic novel, Les Lèvres Rouges (The Red Lips), while also releasing a children's book and an A-Z of fashion. More recently she published N'oubliez Pas Que Je Joue (Don't Forget That I'm Acting, 2012), which covered her illness. Her love for books remains embodied in the New York Rykiel boutique that includes a library with 15,000 volumes.
The company remained un the family until 2012 when 80 percent was purchased by First Heritage Brands, at the time called Fung Brands - an investment firm backed by two Hong Kong billionaires, Victor Fung and William Fung. The family initially retained a 20 percent stake, but it sold it later on, even though Nathalie still works at the fashion brand as consultant. The current Creative Director at Sonia Rykiel is Julie de Libran.
Fashion-wise Sonia Rykiel leaves a long heritage: though she is often dubbed the "Queen of Knitwear" (even though she didn't really learn how to knit...), she was more than that.
While Coco Chanel replaced corsets with casual elegance, Rykiel represented a newly liberated generation in the '60s. Her iconic hairstyle may have pointed towards a sort of pre-Raphaelite beauty, but she definitely had the temperament of La Casati.
She encouraged women to wear trousers when skirts were the rule, opted for bold and bright colours when somber and neutral shades were in fashion and stayed loyal to recurring palettes, such as her beloved combination of red, white and black. She also came up with functional ideas such as reversible dresses and jackets and created ribbed figure-hugging sweaters that looked practical and comfortable but guaranteed the wearer a healthy dose of style.
Writer Hélène Cixous perfectly described the fashion designer and her work when she stated "Sonia Rykiel fabricates the dream of the body: to freely be of a body with the legs, the belly, the thighs, the arms, with the air of the sea, with space."
There are a few lessons that young designers should literally steal from her: Rykiel designed for a no age group, she focused on timelessness rather than on trends and, rather than copying somebody else, she followed her own insticts, inspirations and ideas.
As reports keep on arriving about the recent earthquake in Italy (another 4.8 aftershock hit the area around 6.28am this morning), let's look at another regeneration project, recently featured at the 15th International Architecture Biennale in Venice. The Inujima Landscape Project by SANAA does not relate to rebuilding an area after a natural disaster, but it's interesting all the same since it focuses on the regeneration of the island of Inujima, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan.
Known for its thriving stone and copper industries, but now left with an elderly population of just under 50 people, the island features traditional homes and scenic pathways. SANAA's project started in 2008 as an exploration on giving to the island a more versatile future in which nature, design and daily life are combined together to create a new architecture.
The first phase consisted in remodelling or rebuilding several houses that had been lying abandoned for years. Five exhibition pavilions and a rest space were completed, transforming the village into a sort of museum in which art was intertwined with daily life. These early stages of the project were already presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010.
The second phase is currently ongoing and consists of three investigations: the first one encourages visitors to linger on the island thanks to abandoned buildings that have been turned into temporary housing, artists' studios and communal kitchens.
The second investigation revolves around education with the architects reimagining the island as a creative platform, hosting art and performance workshops for both residents and temporary inhabitants.
Last, but not least, the third exploration encourages participants to have an active role in forming the village. The freedom of the island encourages indeed locals and visitors to create their own spaces.
The videos in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini at the current Venice Architecture Biennale are accompanied by models of the pavilions on the island: the most striking thing about these structures is that, while they obviously bear the SANAA trademark, they are also integrated in the environment.
In a nutshell, this architectural intervention is modest and subtle, yet striking as the integrity of the place is respected, but the architectural shapes are powerful enough to attract the eye. There's a lesson to be learnt here that may be valid also for architects working on rebuilding a place after a natural catastrophe - it is possible to create sophisticated designs while respecting the natural configuration and environmental needs of a place.
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake devastated several villages - Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata and Pescara del Tronto - in the centre of Italy in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The focus of the quake was shallow (2.5 miles underground) and, as a consequence, the destruction was greater, with a death toll that has been quickly rising in the last 24 hours. The quake was felt in an ample area that went from Emilia Romagna to Campania, and conjured up in the mind of many people the terrible ghost of the L'Aquila earthquake. Saving the survivors remains the priority in these situations, but the rebuilding process that follows in these situations is a vital issue.
A few months ago an exhibition entitled "Creation From Catastrophe" at London's Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) tackled this problem, reminding visitors that it is an immense challenge to reconstruct cities devastated by earthquakes, tsunamis or fires. At the same time, the reconstruction represents the chance to right the wrongs of the past and create better structures.
A disaster such as an earthquake should make us realise how fragile life is, while at the same time inspire new building solutions. Japan's most influential architectural movement - Metabolism - emerged for example after WWII when the country faced its greatest post-disaster planning and reconstruction challenge.
Metabolism conceived cities as living and ever-evolving entities, and environmental disasters prompted architects to come up with structures that could withstand earthquakes and tsunamis and allowed human beings to live with nature rather than fight it. Metabolism's proposals for Hiroshima, Tokyo and Ise Bay in Japan as well as Skopje, in Macedonia, were all featured in the RIBA exhibition.
As a whole the exhibition at RIBA showed ten case studies in four continents, highlighting how architects reimagined cities and societies. The event opened with Christopher Wren's reconfiguration of London after the Great Fire of 1666, with historic projects visualising a masterplan.
Further case studies included the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (that was followed by fires and a tsunami); the great fire of Chicago in 1871; the major earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Chile in 2010; floods in Pakistan and Nigeria (2010 and 2012); the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 with the resulting tsunami that caused the release of radioactive materials; the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, and Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey (2012).
Projects were illustrated via historical documents and contemporary studies with work by Yasmeen Lari, ELEMENTAL, OMA, Shigeru Ban, NLÉ, Toyo Ito and Metabolism (Kenzo Tange and Kurokawa Kisho).
There are definitely many lessons to be learnt from natural disasters: Alejandro Aravena and his architectural practice ELEMENTAL worked for example in Chile with the citizens and local government in a community-based approach, but also the Homes-for-All initiative in Japan was the result of a collaboration of a group of architects - Toyo Ito, Riken Yamamoto, Hiroshi Naito, Kengo Kuma and Kazuyo Sejima - with the earthquake survivors.
Their project moved from one main aim - gifting a home to all the people who lost theirs during the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake - but it soon turned into a discovery process and an opportunity to ponder a bit about the future of society and architecture.
Toyo Ito, Kumiko Inui, Sou Fujimoto, and Akihisa Hirata designed for the occasion a vertical structure that resembled a grove and that was partially inspired by the floats on display in an annual festival known as Kenka Tanabata, with nineteen cedar logs wrapped around the building creating a number of balconies on varying levels.
In most of the projects included in the "Creation From Catastrophe" event at RIBA, architects became educators, community facilitators, activists and builders that planned for disasters and extreme situations.
Italy is in mourning at the moment for the victims of this latest earthquake, but inspiration for the next phase should maybe come from these projects and from Toyo Ito's words: "A disaster zone where everything is lost offers the perfect opportunity for us to take a fresh look, from the ground up, at what architecture really is."
In yesterday's post we looked at Versace plagiarising – pardon – "paying tribute" to Joy Division. Yet the Joy Division situation has by now gone completely out of control. In recent weeks there has indeed been a proliferation of overpriced band T-shirts and sweats.
On sites such as Farfetch, Net-a-Porter, Barneys and LuisaViaRoma you can opt between a T-shirt or a sweat with Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" album cover, a top announcing The Clash's Sandinista Tour, or a tee with The Misfits' of Black Flag's logo, but there are also a couple of garments dedicated to Blondie.
"Designed" by New York-based brand R13 (by Chris Leba), these pieces retail between €250- €275 (T-shirts) and €330 (sweats). Some of them are also covered in holes or fake tears and rips that "prove" you have been wearing them on an adventurous never-ending tour in which you worked as a loyal roadie and acted as a rebel groupie.
Now, as genuine music fans know, a band T-shirt is a great way to publicly show your allegiance to a music icon. The infinite possibilities of the Internet weren't available when I was a teenager and this meant that, when I couldn't find a T-shirt of a band I liked, I just made it by chopping up photocopies of album covers, articles, quotes and lyrics, collaging them together and then having my "artwork" printed on a T-shirt.
I would swap with other fans the most successful "designs" I made with (badly recorded) bootlegs on tapes that still made me happy. You may argue this was illegal, but, well, it was fun and the shirts and bootlegs were not for sale. In a nutshell, it was a fan thing and not part of a major business and the process meant you were a sort of devout member of a secret sect of fans.
So seeing a band shirt that you may create by yourself or that you may buy at a fraction of that price (a quick Amazon search with the words "Joy Division T-shirt" will produce garments going from £6.99 to £27.99) being sold by supposedly luxury retailers at immoral prices, deeply puzzles and disgusts me.
I'm not even sure if I'm more disgusted by the price, by the possible copyright infringement issues behind them (frankly, the excuse that a band's logo is not trademarked is a bit of an easy way out, the history of bands' logos is indeed a troubled one, with designers receiving at times no royalties or being paid very little...), by the fact that they show the fashion industry is mainly producing unoriginal fads, or by the fake holes on the garments (I honestly find it hard reconciling bands such as The Clash with this trend/with such prices).
Apparently, some (note: "some") of these pieces that plagiarise - pardon - "pay homage" to these bands are made from the "softest blend of cotton and cashmere". In a nutshell, they are not supposed to show your musical knowledge or allegiance to a band at a gig or in the street, but your cool status, showing off you are so perversely wealthy that you are able to afford such an item (even though you still love camouflaging this with an artificial patina of labour represented by the holes on it...).
In a way I'm terrified. What's next, indeed? Gary Lightbody's anonymous, plain and distressed T-shirt in Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" being repackaged as an extraordinary and exclusive item, and being revomited by some supposedly hip designer in a cashmere blend?
Fans of the fashion and law connection may remember that, in January 2012, Disney "designed" a Mickey Mouse shirt that seemed to have an uncanny resemblance with the cover artwork of Joy Division's 1979 album "Unknown Pleasures".
The shirt was sold at Disneyland, Disney World, and online with the following description: "Inspired by the iconic sleeve of Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' album, this Waves Mickey Mouse Tee incorporates Mickey's image within the graphic of the pulse of a star. That's appropriate given few stars have made bigger waves than Mickey!"
As you may remember from a previous post, the postmodernist "Unknown Pleasures" album cover was designed by Peter Saville and was indeed based on a 1967 image of radio waves from pulsar CP 1919, taken from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. Saville reversed the image from black-on-white to white-on-black.
No matter how well-meaning Disney's intention was, the design seemed inappropriate for the family friendly company considering the fact that the band took its name from Nazi concentration camps brothels and that lead singer Ian Curtis tragically and sadly committed suicide at a young age.
Previous members of Joy Division didn't know anything about the T-shirt, but former bassist Peter Hook spoke to NME at the time confirming that he had not given permission for Disney to use the image, but also explaining "From a legal point of view, the image is in the public domain, as Disney know." At the time Hook also stated that it was "quite a compliment for a huge conglomerate like Disney to pick up on a poor little Manchester band that only existed for a couple of years." Fans complained, though, and, shortly afterwards, the infamous T-shirt was pulled from the shelves.
Yet, the T-shirt that turned into a PR nightmare for Disney, is now back but it's not sold by Disney. It is indeed "designed" by Versace and fuses the fashion house Medusa logo with the trademark waveform of the Joy Division cover.
Technically there is no copyright infringement here if we consider what Hook stated about the image they used being in public domain, and some may argue that, being this product aimed at grown-ups, what applied to Disney doesn't apply to Versace (or does it?).
Yet again the more you look at it, the more you think about Joy Division and the more you think about what happened to Disney, the more you wonder why the same doesn't happen to Versace. Consider also that Disney's product retailed at $24.95, Versace's T-shirt costs Euro 275,40 on Farfetch, and Euro 290 on Lyst.
Great to hear that Donatella is a fan, but are the remaining members of Joy Division or Peter Saville aware of this new "tribute"? You say that it is only mildly "inspired" by Joy Division? Then why is it that the links to the product on Farfetch and on Lyst both contain the words "Joy Division" in the URL as you can see from the screen capture? (proving in this way that the house wasn't actually taking the inspiration from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy...).
It looks like fashion brands are definitely running out of ideas if they have to sell plagiarised T-shirts at immoral prices (and no, Donatella, blaming your intern or your research team as most designers do nowadays when they are accused of stealing and copying, won't excuse you...). As Hook told NME when the Disney T-shirt was released "I'm amazed they're that hard up that they need to prey on little indie bands." So, Donatella, take responsibility, and, like all respectable Joy Division bootleggers, make at least a contribution to an epilepsy charity in memory of Ian Curtis.
Most fashion-related articles at the moment are sadly reminding us that summer is almost over, but there are ways to make it last for a little bit longer, such as heading to an exhibition revolving around swimwear. Mind you, not any exhibition about swimsuits, but "Le Bikini a 70 Ans" (until 30th August) at the Joseph-Froissart Gallery, in Paris.
As its title annouces, the event celebrates the 70th anniversary of the two-piece suit and does so through pictures, advertising posters and actual bikinis.
An irresistible poster of Ava Gardner in a high-waisted vivid yellow two-piece suit with a brassiere-like top invites people to step into the gallery, and admire images of stars including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Bettie Page, Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, and Ursula Andress (the latter in her iconic bikini from the 1962 James Bond film Dr. No) while getting inspired by the bikinis on dummies.
People interested in fashion and history will also be able to discover a few notions about this iconic garment.
While it may be possible to spot women wearing bandeau tops and matching bottoms and in the mosaics of the ancient Villa Romana del Casale (built in the first quarter of the 4th century) near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, showing women exercising, running, or receiving the palm of victory and crown for winning an athletic competition, the two-piece suit as we know it is attributed to Louis Réard, a mechanical engineer turned designer.
Louis Réard saw women in St. Tropez trying to roll up the edges of their swimsuits to get a better tan and was inspired to design a swimsuit that left the midriff exposed.
In May 1946 Jacques Heim produced a two-piece bathing suit, calling it the "atome" because of its dimensions; as a reaction, Réard produced his own design that he called "bikini", after the Pacific atoll where the US conducted atomic tests in the same year. At the time, the piece was rather basic and not really flattering and consisted in four triangles printed with a newspaper pattern.
In 1946 Réard's bikini broken more or less all the moral rules of good taste: French showgirl Micheline Bernardini accepted to wear it at a fashion show at the Molitor pool in Paris, but many other models refused to do so.
The design was a flop, but Réard patented it and, when the two-piece outfit became popular also thanks to films (mind you, the Hollywood Hays code introduced in the 1930s prohibited movie stars from showing navels on screen...), he was able to unleash a legal action against any kind of unwarranted use of the name.
There are interesting bits and pieces in this event, including the Simplicity and Vogue bikini patterns, plus plenty of images showing women wearing bikinis on boats, on the beaches of famous seaside resorts or during swimsuit competitions.
There is actually more behind the seduction of the bikini: its history does indeed touches upon issues of copyright protection, while the bikini was initially also a weapon to destroy morality laws and a symbol of cultural revolution.
Last but not least, it could interestingly be seen in conjunction (rather than in contrast...) with the burkini: people in the '40s were indeed offended by scantily dressed women; now they seem to be offended by covered women, as the recent burkini ban in France proves.
Being a very compact exhibition, unfortunately it stops around the '60s (so don't expect to see Ursula Andress in her weapon of seduction/destruction in Elio Petri's La decima vittima) and, at times, it includes prints of questionable quality. But there are still aspects that can inspire visitors, including some of the bikini shapes and patterns and there is a trick that you can still try at home: Réard's adverts stated that a two-piece suit wasn't a genuine bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring". Go on and check out if you're the proud possessor of a scandalous bikini in Réard's original style.
