The Bikini: A Cultural Revolution in Two Pieces

The text below is the excerpt of the book Bikini Story (ISBN: 9781783107261), written by Patrik Alac, published by Parkstone International.

The metaphorical and physical breaking down of the Berlin Wall, which brought to an end the 1980s and four decades of the Cold War, changed all the preconceived notions long adhered to in the West. Many saw in the downfall of Communism the beginnings of a new freedom that heralded the end of political ideologies. Western nations had picked themselves up from the depredations and deprivations of World War II, and had so considerably developed their technologies as now to be in a position to apply that technological advance, and its material benefits, to the enjoyment of life. The proportion of each state’s budget allocated to the armed forces decreased and military rivalry all over the world was transformed into an economic rivalry.

At the beginning of the 1990s the bikini at last acquired a new status. It became socially acceptable – no longer capable of shocking, no longer symbolizing the amoral flaunting of private parts. The obscene properties it had been accused of having by society throughout the 1950s and 1960s had become part of the domain of the pornographic – which had, itself, also begun to take on social acceptability.

Any anxiety surrounding the bikini was thus a thing of the past. Likewise, there was little point in wearing a bikini if you specifically wanted to look “sexy” – a one-piece costume would do you just as well. So the woman of the 1990s could wear either a bikini or a onepiece costume, whichever she felt like wearing or whichever she thought better suited to being active or relaxing and getting a tan.

In terms of fashion styling, the final decade of the twentieth century was also an era of liberation. Nothing was off-limits: virtually anything designers could come up with was permitted. Outside of specific movements and directions, fashion began to turn back to history for reference, producing “retro” styles designed by individuals on behalf of a fashion house. There seemed to be only one major principle – the more colours were included, combined without any apparent coordination, the better it was.

More interesting were the attempts by various couturiers to alter their status. Fashion came to be perceived as an art, and the creator of a fashion style should therefore be seen as an artist. His or her work was not restricted to putting clothes on bodies; it was, at the same time, making a statement. No longer passively silent, fashion was now communicating: clothes were signs and symbols by which the body spoke.

Critics of the time noted that fashion-as-art seemed to find a place for itself quite easily in the intellectual vacuum of the 1990s. It bared no political allegiances and constituted a supremely inoffensive mode of self-expression. The fashion designer as artist operated within a system governed by a dialogue worked out in advance – this is what a beautiful body looks like; this is what a beautiful dress looks like – which afforded him or her ever more significance. If you had the body, you could buy this dress in my boutique. In view of such criteria (“If you have the wall to hang it on, you can buy this picture I have painted”) the designer could only be a parody of an artist of the materialist type who invented Western civilization. He or she thus represented the inevitable and exclusive result of Capitalism which had become more and more megalomanic, dreaming of dominating the world – and it was not by chance that the fashion designer chose the hollow speech of the fashion universe to express himself or herself. What he or she produced was just external appearance, a perfect outer casing, but the whole was empty and comprised simply of objects notable for rarity, a personal design involving unique clothes made from expensive materials.

To a great extent this principle of haute couture overtook classic individualism based on culture and particular elements of personality. Haute couture “art” might from now on be acquired in the form of a unique item of clothing. The fantastic sum of money required to purchase an evening dress that is an original model from a fashion designer guarantees to the purchaser that she is unique in herself and of her type, not solely for the gala dinner at which she wears this fabulously expensive creation, but afterwards and for the rest of her life.

And so the great couturier was transformed into an artist in the eyes of society. It was his or her task to furnish the leisure hours of life with guarantees of delightful decor, with fascinating costumes involving things used in original ways. He or she was the provider of beauty that was always on exhibition and had no other purpose in existing than to be on exhibition.

It would not be unreasonable to compare such a couturier and his or her creations with the French Sun King, King Louis XIV’s master of ceremonies who, with his fireworks spectaculars, strove to establish the image of the royal court as one of theatrical ephemerality while always advertising his own name and accomplishments to the rich and powerful. The contemporary fountains, cascades, and light-shows transformed the world into an impressively well-staged background for a pretty dress. Today, then, the world is there to provide an adequate background to the fashion parade. Such a diminution – of life in general to a fashion parade and of the world to an “adequate background” for it – corresponds to the blind spot of our times. It is a blind spot that no one cares to cast light upon.

The most significant change in beachwear occurred during the 1990s, although it was more to do with the way costumes were designed than with innovatory ideas or techniques of production. Computer-assisted design techniques opened up a vast field of possibilities, notably in endowing photos with a quite unforeseen degree of perfection. They could be retouched, improved and/or modified without reference to a negative. The original picture could be thought of as no more than a base to start from, to manipulate at will using computer graphics programs.

For those of you who want to know more about Bikini, you happen to be in Germany, be sure not to miss going to the Bikini Art Museum. There, you will encounter the display of Bikini and Bathing culture.

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