Creator of bikini faces bankruptcy

Press, 20 December 1988, Page 39

Creator of bikini faces bankruptcy

NZPA-AFP Paris A French fashion house that was behind the launch in 1946 of the bikini, which soon became the most daring and fanciful beach garment for the post-war bathing beauty, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The Reard company said it would close on Christmas Eve, unless it found an investor willing to take over its ailing beach fashion business.

“Our capital has not been enough to see us through two successive bad seasons,” said Mr Jacques Castel, the manager of the company. In June 1946 Reard presented its latest creation, the world’s smallest bathing costume, a matching twin set of printed cotton that left little of the wearer’s anatomy to the imagination.

To boost the bikini’s explosive impact on the public, it was named after the Pacific atoll where one of the first nuclear tests had just been carried out.

That summer the bikini was pictured on the cover of several glossy magazines, but it took a little longer to sweep the beaches, where at first it made the matrons wince. By the 19505, however, it was a common summertime sight throughout the Western world.

Reard may have precipitated its own downfall by fashioning the monokini in 1964 — which sparked as much controversy as the bikini did 20 years before, but was easier to make and cost only half the price.