On July 5, 1946, less than a week after the United States detonated an atomic bomb above tiny Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, a Frenchman named Louis Réard — an automobile engineer moonlighting as a fashion designer — introduced to the sunbathing public the world's smallest swimsuit. Réard called his creation the bikini, a name inspired, he later said, by the sight of women rolling up their bathing suits in order to acquire a more complete tan.
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