this: the women's bathing suit

Bikini was invented by French engineer Louis Réard in 1946 and he named it after the Bikini Atoll, which was the site of a nuclear weapon test called Operation Crossroads on July 1, 1946 in the Pacific. The reasoning for the name was that the burst of excitement created by it would be like a nuclear device. Monokini]], a bikini variant, derives its name, as a back formation, from bikini, interpreting the first syllable as the [[Latin prefix bi- (meaning "two" or "doubled") and substituting for it mono- (meaning "one"). Jacques Heim called his bikini precursor the Atome (named for its size), while Louis Réard claimed to have "split the Atome" to make it smaller.

Bikini is the most popular beachwear around the globe, which is, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard, due to "the power of women, and not the power of fashion", as he explains, ""The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women." By mid 2000s, these two-piece bathing suits eveolved into an US$ 811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries.

History

Ancient artwork dating back to the Diocletian period (286-305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale outside the town of Piazza Armerina, Sicily have depicted women in garments resembling modern-day bikinis. The Roman villa with its large and complex collection of Roman mosaics is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls", playing in clothing that would pass as bikinis today are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles found at the site. Depicted on the floor of the room dubbed as the "Chamber of the Ten Maiden" (Sala delle Dieci Ragazze in Italian), the mosaic was excavated by Gino Vinicio Gentile in the period 1950-60. The bikini girls are shown in the artwork dubbed as "Coronation of the Winner", performing various exercises including weight-lifting, discus throwing, running, and ball-games, while one woman in toga is depicted with a crown in hand and one of the Maidens is holding a palm frond in hand.

In ancient Rome, the bikini-style bottom, a wrapped loincloth made of cloth or leather, was called subligar or subligaculum (meaning "little binding underneath") while a band of cloth or leather to support the breasts was called strophium or mamillare. One such bottom, made of leather, from the time of Roman Britain was displayed Museum of London in 1998. Martial, a Latin poet from Hispania who published between AD 86 and 103, satirized an female athlete who played ball in a bikini-like garb.