A bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit featuring two triangles of fabric on top, similar to a bra and covering the woman's breasts , and two triangles of fabric on the bottom, the front covering the pelvis but exposing the navel, and the back covering the buttocks. In May , Parisian fashion designer Jacques Heim released a two-piece swimsuit design that he named the Atome. His skimpy design was risque, exposing the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer , Micheline Bernardini, from the Casino de Paris to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions.
Evidence of bikini -style women's clothing has been found as early as BC, and the history of the bikini can be traced back to that era. Illustrations of women wearing bikini-like garments during competitive athletic events in the Roman era have been found in several locations, the most famous of which is at Villa Romana del Casale. It modeled by Micheline Bernardini , on July 5, , the name for his design borrowing from the Bikini Atoll , where post-war testing on the atomic bomb were taking place. Contestants in the first Miss World beauty pageant wore them in , but the bikini was then banned from the competition. Actress Brigitte Bardot drew attention when she was photographed wearing a bikini on the beach during the Cannes Film Festival in