Dear LPG,

I am not as young as I used to be but I am a man of the world.  I can still appreciate a good looking women, and I am sure I am not unique in that way. 

Not long ago I saw again the first ever James Bond film, ‘Dr. No’, and I had to take a good look at Ursula Andress in that iconic scene on the beach.  She was wearing a bikini, and when I mentioned it to a friend he told me something that will, forever, completely change the way that I think about that picture in the future.

The two-piece swimsuit designs appear to have been around for much longer than the late 1950’s, but it was then that two post-war designers, because of the lack of material available reinvented them.  Jacques Heim and Louis Réard launched their versions within days of each other and called them the ‘Atome’ and the ‘Bikini’ respectively.  The first name indicates its brevity by comparing it to the smallest known particle, but the second name is the one that caught on in the UK.

Just four days earlier than the unveiling of the Bikini the USA used the island it was named after to continue a series of nuclear tests with devastating results.  It was more or less blown to pieces and the consequences for the islanders who lived there at the time were pretty devastating too, even though the USA moved them away from the island before the tests began.

 I am sure many remember that incident being reported back then, but knowing what I know now, I will never look at a picture of a bikini-clad lady in the same way again.

PC, Brockley

LPG found a few facts…    (►►►)   (►►►)