Micheline Bernardini Explained

Micheline Bernardini
Birth Date:1 December 1927
Birth Place:Colmar, France
Nationality:French
Occupation:Model

Micheline Bernardini (born 1 December 1927) is a French former nude dancer at the Casino de Paris who agreed to model, on 5 July 1946, Louis Réard's two-piece swimsuit, which he called the bikini, named four days after the first test of an American nuclear weapon at the Bikini Atoll.[1]

Réard's bikini

Designer Louis Réard could not find a runway model willing to showcase his revealing design for a two-piece swimsuit. Risqué for its time, it exposed the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. He hired Bernardini, an 18-year-old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris, as his model.[2] [3] He introduced his design, a two-piece swimsuit with a g-string back made out of 30sqin of cloth with newspaper type pattern, which he called a bikini, at a press conference at the Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris in July 1946.[4]

Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The International Herald Tribune alone ran nine stories on the event.[5] The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received over 50,000 fan letters.[6]

Later life

Bernardini later moved to Australia. She appeared from 1948 to 1958 in a number of revues at the Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne.[7] [8] Footage of her 1946 modeling appearance was featured in an episode of the reality television series Love Lust titled The Bikini, in 2011.

Bernardini posed at age 58 in a bikini for photographer Peter Turnley, in 1986.[9]

References

Notes

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Operation Crossroads: Fact Sheet. Department of the Navy – Naval History and Heritage Command. 13 August 2013. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20121024121304/http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm. 24 October 2012.
  2. Web site: Michele Bernadini: The First Bikini . Judson . Rosebush . Bikini Science . 17 September 2008 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070927084552/http://www.bikiniscience.com/chronology/1945-1950_SS/LR4601_S/LR4601.html . 27 September 2007 .
  3. Web site: The History of the Bikini. TeenyB. August 10, 2020 . March 9, 2021.
  4. Web site: Bikini introduced – Jul 05, 1946 . History.com. 16 May 2018.
  5. Book: Mitchell. Claudia A.. Reid-Walsh. Jacqueline. Girl Culture an Encyclopedia. 2008. Greenwood Press. Westport, Connecticut. 978-0-313-08444-7. 82.
  6. Web site: Bikini Introduced . 17 September 2008 . A&E Television Networks.
  7. McLeod, Alan Lindsey. R. G. Howarth, Australian Man of Letters, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 2005, . p.81
  8. https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/__prompt_-_tivoli_theatres_-__jan_2014.pdf Tivoli Theatres Performing Arts Programs and Ephemera
  9. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/forty-years-after-modeling-the-first-bikini-on-july-5-news-photo/635232931 Photo by Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images