The modern bikini first appeared in 1946, and since then it has become a part of popular culture. It is one of the most widely worn women's swimsuits, used for swimming and in a variety of other contexts. Today, bikinis appear in competitions, films, magazines, music, literature, and video games. Despite the availability of more revealing glamour wear, bikini modeling remains popular and can still create controversy. Portrayals of the bikini in popular culture led, to a large extent, to its acceptance by Western society at large. In 1960, Brian Hyland's pop song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" inspired a bikini-buying spree. The white bikini worn by Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in the 1962 James Bond film Dr. No has been cited as one of the most famous bikinis of all time. By 1963, the movie Beach Party, starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, led a wave of films that made the bikini a pop-culture symbol. Playboy first featured a bikini on its cover in 1962. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue debuted two years later. This increasing popularity was reinforced by its appearance in such contemporary films as How to Stuff a Wild Bikini featuring Annette Funicello and One Million Years B.C. (1966) featuring Raquel Welch.James Kitchling, Short History of Bikinis and Swimsuits , 3X24 News Magazine Raquel Welch's fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. became a famous moment in cinema history.Cambridge Film Trust. (2016). One Million Years B.C. Cambridge Film Festival. Retrieved December 5, 2016. Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Gina Lollobrigida and Jane Russell further helped the growing popularity of bikinis. Pin up posters of Monroe and Mansfield, as well as Hayworth, Bardot and Raquel Welch distributed around the world contributed significantly to the popularity of the bikini.Lorna Edwards, "You've still got it, babe, The Age, June 3, 2006
Bikini contests
Bikini contests are a form of adult entertainment where women compete against each other in bikinis as beauty contests. They can take place in bars, nightclubs, strip clubs, on beaches, and at beauty pageants, as well as during intermissions of boxing or wrestling matches, and at car shows. Bodybuilding competitions may also feature bikini contest segments. It is becoming more common for women to wear bikinis at swimsuit competitions. Bikini contests can also take place over the Internet by women submitting pictures of themselves in bikinis.
Bikini contests may be organised or sponsored by related companies for marketing purposes or to try to find and attract new talent to promote their products. Miss Hawaiian Tropic is organized by Playtex to promote "Hawaiian Tropic", its suntan lotion. NOPI runs the annual "Hot Import Nights" bikini contest, which is held in conjunction with the import car-show in Atlanta, Georgia, and the annual Hooters bikini competition.
Some contestants in bikini contests undergo plastic surgery for breast and lip augmentations. Bikini contests can still generate controversy in some parts of the world. When Mariyah Moten competed in the Miss Bikini of the Universe pageant in Beihai, China in 2006,"Bikini-clad entrants vie for 'Queen Pearl' title". China Daily. August 12, 2006. she was the first Pakistani girl to participate in a bikini pageant, creating outrage in her home country."'Miss Bikini' did not represent Pakistan, says official". Dawn.com (Pakistan). September 8, 2006."Agents of change or miss-representations?". Times of India (Delhi). September 9, 2006. She also became the most photographed participant of the contest and won the Best in Media/Miss Press title. A year later she was 2nd Runner-up in the Miss Asia International contest and Miss Asia World, and was featured on the cover of Sexy South Asian Girls 2007 calendar."Beauty queen's calendar image draws hate titles". Gulf News. Al Nisr Publishing LLC. January 23, 2007."From Miss Pak to the Sexy SA Girls of 2007". DNA (India). Diligent Media Corporation. January 21, 2007.
Bikini in major beauty pageants Miss World
Origin In 1951, the first Miss World contest, originally the Festival Bikini Contest,Elissa Stein & Lee Meriwether, Beauty Queen, page 45, Chronicle Books, 2006, was organized by Eric Morley as a mid-century advertisement for swimwear at the Festival of Britain.Susan Dewey, Making Miss India Miss World page 46, Syracuse University Press, 2008, The press welcomed the spectacle and referred to it as Miss World, and Morley registered the name as a trademark.Keith Lovegrove, Pageant: The Beauty Contest, page 1967, teNeues, 2002, When the winner Kiki Håkansson from Sweden was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. Håkansson remains the first and last Miss World to be crowned in her bikini, a crowning that was condemned by Pope Pius XII who declared the swimsuit to be sinful.Various, Selvedge: The Fabric of Your Life, page 39, Selvedge Ltd., 2005 Bikinis were outlawed from the pageant and evening gowns introduced instead.Han Shin, Beauty with a Purpose, page 193, iUniverse, 2004, After the controversy, bikinis were banned from other beauty pageants around the world as well.Ben Marcus and Jeff Divine, Surfing USA!: An Illustrated History of the Coolest Sport of All Time, page 60, MVP Books, 2005,
Controversy Bikinis reappeared in later contests amid additional controversy. In the 1970s and 1980s the contest was regularly picketed by feminist protesters, who distributed flyers against the indecency of the contest.Michelene Wandor, The body politic: writings from the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain, 1969–1972, page 252, Stage 1, 1972, The pageant disappeared for a while and in 1996, when the Miss World contest was held in Bangalore, India, dozens of Indian groups who opposed the event claimed that the contest degraded women by featuring them in bikinis. Social activist Subhashini Ali commented, "It's not an IQ test. Neither is it a charity show. It's a beauty contest in which these things have been added on as sops." The protests were so intense that the organizers were finally compelled to shift the venue of the "Swimsuit Round" to Seychelles. Countering these claims, the contest organizer says that the organization has raised £300 million for charity in many of the countries where it operates since 2000. Feminist groups published fliers against bikinis in the contest in 1970.
In 2013, the Miss World event is to be hosted by Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country. The country's top Muslim clerical body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, suggested that the event should be cancelled because it promotes "hedonism, materialism, and consumerism", and is nothing but "an excuse to show women's body parts that should remain covered." The organizers later announced that the bikini would be replaced by one-piece swimsuits and even sarongs, traditional beachwear on the resort island of Bali. Critics accuse the Miss World organizers of caving to extremist pressures. They point out that Bali is a destination for tourists from across the world who often wear minimal swimwear.
Miss Earth
Vida Samadzai was the 2003 Afghani contestant for the Miss Earth title. She was severely condemned by both the Afghan authorities and community for seeking the title.Gersh Kuntzman, "Beauty is a Beast", Newsweek, November 3, 2003 Samadzai was born in Afghanistan but raised in the United States. She was living in India at the time of the contest.Ayesha Matthan, "Fida over Vida", The Hindu, December 18, 2007 The Afghan Supreme Court banned swimsuit contests and said that appearing naked in beauty contests is completely un-Islamic, and is against Afghan tradition, human honour and dignity. Habiba Sarabi, the Afghan women affairs minister, said of the event "appearing naked before a camera or television is not women's freedom but in my opinion is to entertain men". Afghanistan's embassy in Washington DC declared that claims by Afghan American Samadzai to represent Afghanistan is baseless.News desk, "Afghan Supreme Court bans beauty pageants", Independent Online, September 30, 2003 Samadzai, the second woman to be crowned Miss Afghanistan after Zohra Daoud's crowning in 1972, received a number of death threats and had to be under the protection of FBI for three months.Farhad J. Dadyburjor, "I was under FBI's watch for 3 months: Miss Afghanistan", Daily News and Analysis (India), June 29, 2006 She said she was a bit uncomfortable wearing the "70s style red bikini" and was aware of the risks involved.News Desk, "Miss Afghanistan says she was uncomfortable wearing bikini, goal is to help women and children back home", Financial Times, November 7, 2003 Curiously, when Samdzai's compatriot Zallascht Sadat won the crown of Miss Deutschland 2010, which she kept through 2011 because the contest was not held that year, wearing a bikini, before going on to become Miss Globe 2012, there was not much controversy.
Miss America
Era of one-piece swimsuits Miss America began as a swimsuit competition between eight contestants in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1921 as National Beauty Pageant Tournament, bikinis were dropped from its list of acceptable swimwear in 1947. After the bikini is introduced in Paris in 1946, Miss America contestants are issued identical two-piece swimsuits that clearly show their midriff. The following year, the two-piece swimsuits are replaced with identical cable-knit swimsuits. The pageant grew to include formalwear and talent and its popularity increased.Roger Chapman, Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices, pp. 38–39, M.E. Sharpe, 2010, Swimsuits issued by the pageant were nicknamed "bulletproof vests". Two of the 17 swimsuit finalists wore two-piece swimsuits, and Erika Kauffman, representing Hawaii, wore the briefest bikini of all and won the swimsuit competition. In 1949 the Los Angeles Times reported that Miss America BeBe Shopp on her visit to Paris said she did not approve the bikini for American girls, though she did not mind French girls wearing them. Feminist protesters protested against that swimsuit in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1994 Miss America Organization asked viewers to vote to decide whether to keep the swimsuit round. Viewers overwhelmingly voted to keep it.
Era of the bikini In 1997, 51 years after the bikini's debut, and 77 years after the Miss America Pageant was founded, the 51 contestants in the contest were, for the first time, allowed to pick their own swimsuits. On September 9, 1997, Miss Maryland Jamie Fox became the first contestant in 50 years to compete in a two-piece swimsuit during the Preliminary Swimsuit Competition at the Miss America Pageant.
Various major pageants