The new ‘Bikini’ swimming costume caused a sensation at a beauty contest at the Molitor swimming pool in Paris. Designer Louis Reard was unable to find a ‘respectable’ model for his costume and the job of displaying it went to 19-year-old Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. It was marketed as a two-piece swimming suit that revealed “everything about a girl except her mother’s maiden name.”
