Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, 1997: An Intro: Bikini Waxing

<body background="bg.gif" link="#ffffff" vlink="#ffffff"> <CENTER> </CENTER> <CENTER> </CENTER> <HR> <p align=center> <IMG VSPACE=25 HSPACE=5 SRC="header1.gif" ALT="SI Online Swimsuit 1997"> <P> <TABLE BORDER=0 WIDTH=475> <TR VALIGN=TOP> <TD WIDTH=50>   </TD> <TD WIDTH=425> <P ALIGN=CENTER> <FONT SIZE=+2> From Bardot to Graf, from ground zero to grass, here's the skinny on the two-piece <P ALIGN=CENTER> </FONT> <FONT SIZE=+0> by Steve Rushin </FONT> <P ALIGN=CENTER> <EM> <FONT COLOR="#FF0000" SIZE=+3> you are not reading this. </FONT> </EM> <P> And if you happen to be the kind of personlet's face it, if you happen to be the only personwho really does read the articles in the swimsuit issue, then you already know that last year witnessed the 50th anniversary of the invention of the bikini (from the Latin <EM>bi</EM>, meaning "two," and <EM>kini</EM>, meaning "square inches of Lycra"). <P> What you may not have considered is this: We now stand poised at a historical crossroad, a crucial cleavage in the history of the swimsuit. Nineteen ninety-seven is the dawn of a new age, the first year of the second half of the Bikini Century. This raises several vexing questions, not the least of which are, Where is the bikini heading? Can I follow it there? And if so, will I have to wear sunglasses and pretend I'm not looking? <P> <IMG ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 SRC="01.gif" ALT="Jayne Mansfield"> <HR NOSHADE> <FONT COLOR="#880000" SIZE=+1> <STRONG> For a 1957 <CITE>Life</CITE> photo shoot, Jayne Mansfield was as buoyant as a bevy of bikinied water bottles<BR> <CITE> photograph by Allan Grant/Life Magazine </CITE> </FONT> </FONT> <HR NOSHADE> <P> With so much at stake, I was asked to compose the following bikini lines, to offer these bikini waxings. Pleaseallow me to bikini brief you. <P> I am eminently qualified to do so, having just screened the actual motion pictures <CITE>Bikini Beach</CITE>, <CITE>Bikini Squad</CITE>, <CITE>Bikini Drive-in</CITE>, <CITE>The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini</CITE>, <CITE>How to Stuff a Wild Bikini</CITE>, <CITE>Stocks and Blondes</CITE> (um, it had a bikini on the box) and <CITE>It's a Bikini World</CITE>. To which the following pages will wholeheartedly attest: It certainly is a Bikini World. <P> In this issue you will circumnavigate that world on a navel expedition more epic than Magellan's. Since last September, SI has endeavored to visit every important port in Bikinidom, or to burn-and-peel trying. I was appointed Official Bikini Researcher, which only <EM>sounds</EM> as if it belongs on a T-shirt sold in truck stops, next to those declaring <FONT SIZE=-1>I'M WITH STUPID</FONT> or <FONT SIZE=-1>TAKE ME DRUNK, I'M HOME</FONT>. In fact, my work would address some serious swimsuit issues and require exhausting excursions to centers of swimwear scholarship. Which is to say, St. Tropez. <P> St. Tropez is home to Club 55, a bistro frequented by bikini icon Brigitte Bardot, who helped bring the suit to prominence, as did pinup girl Diana Dors, who in '55 sported a mink number at the Venice Film Festival. "Nineteen fifty-five was to the bikini what '54 was to black school children and '56 was to Hungarian freedom fighters," says my colleague Alexander Wolff, whose story on Monaco begins on page 36 and whose company-mandated psychiatric examination begins on Tuesday. Good luck, Alex! <P> Though close, the French Riviera is not quite ground zero in Bikini World. That distinction belongs to the actual ground zero itself: to Bikini, the Pacific atoll on which A-bombs were tested in 1946. That year, Louis Réard, a French automotive engineer who was running his mother's lingerie business, named his new two-piece, atom-sized swimsuit for the test site, and the rest is (revisionist) history: The bikini was born. <P> <IMG ALIGN=RIGHT HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 SRC="02.gif" ALT="Bikini World"> <HR NOSHADE> <FONT COLOR="#880000" SIZE=+1> <STRONG> Thanks to the combination of surf, song and skin, it was a bikini world in '67<br> <CITE> courtesy of Joe Russo </CITE> </FONT> </FONT> <HR NOSHADE> <P> In fact, mosaics found in the fourth-century villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily are festooned with women wearing bikinis. And cavewomen wore fur bikinis (and mascara) as early as the Stone Age, if the appearance of Raquel Welch in <CITE>One Million Years B.C.</CITE> hews to prehistorical fact. And who's to say it doesn't? But that is neither here nor there. <P> Bidding adieu to the Riviera, we next dropped anchor off the coast of Venezuela, spending several <EM>buenas noches</EM> on Los Roques. There, E.M. Swift went fishing with supermodel Niki Taylor. This, too, was an epochal event: The first time in swimsuit issue history that a fishnet was used forget this<EM>actual fishing</EM>. <P> I likewise spent some time angling, though this regrettably had nothing to do with fish. It happened in Malibu at the rented beach house of three swimsuit models. In accordance with the restraining order filed against me in California, what occurred there can be recounted only in a fictionalized form, and I do so on page 200. All parties are forbidden to comment further. Can we just move on? <P> Very well. You will notice that this issue is peopled with professional athletes, as well as models in various stages of undress. (By the way: <EM>Undress</EM> is believed to be a contraction of <EM>Ursula Andress</EM>, who as a Bond girl named Honeychile Rider wore history's most memorable bikini in <CITE>Dr. No</CITE>. It was accompanied by a hip holster that held a hunting knife and generally looked more in keeping with J.R. Rider than H. Rider. But I digress.) <P> In Hawaii, for instance, we photographed members of the women's beach volleyball tour. They are among the few professional athletes to actually compete in bikinis, including, of course, the mysterious Swedish Bikini Team members, whose "sport" was about the only thing never made explicit by those beer commercials in which they starred. <P> Of course, Hawaii itself is not so much associated with bikinis as it is with grass skirts. So we commissioned a designer to combine the two concepts. The result is worn on page 194 by Chandra North (in a grass bikini, by Mother Nature, $5 a square foot). We believe it is the future of swimwear. But seriously: "Who did design the grass bikini?" I asked swimsuit issue editor Elaine Farley. "Monsanto?" <P> "Moschino," she corrected me. <P> <IMG ALIGN=RIGHT HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 SRC="03.gif" ALT="si cover"> <HR NOSHADE> <FONT COLOR="#880000" SIZE=+1> <STRONG> In 1964 the two-piece became a fixture on dormitory walls around the country with Babette March's appearance on SI's first swimsuit cover<br> <CITE> photograph by J. Frederick Smith </CITE> </FONT> </FONT> <HR NOSHADE> <P> I am not making this up. The suit was "grown" by the Italian clothing design firm of Moschino, which suggests that you wash on gentle cycle and lay flat to dry. <P> While looking into bikinis, as it were, I happened upon the seaweed bikini, macramé bikini, vinyl bikini, string bikini, mink bikini, rubber bikini, monokini, Brian Hyland's <CITE>Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini</CITE>, Chanel's infamous "eye-patch" bikini and the irrepressible tanga, "thong" or "dental-floss" bikini, responsible for the crack epidemic on Brazilian beaches. But none were so intriguing as the grass bikini, and I for one think we blew a rare opportunity in neglecting to have Steffi Graf pose in her best surface, rather than on it. <P> That's right. Now it can be told: Graf is our Fräulein February, having been photographed in a double-secret-probationary shoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, last December. Everyone agrees that she looks <EM>wunderbar</EM>, which reminds me: Wonderbra model Eva Herzigova also helps us pay homage to Bikini Atoll by barely wearing a bikini atall, on page 134. <P> How's that? You say you'd like to turn to those photos straightaway? Then I'll cut my remarks short. I had so much more to tell you about swimsuits, but it's obvious we're not on the same page here. (Probably in the most literal sense of that phrase. You turned to Tyra Banks 10 minutes ago, didn't you?) <P> What's the use? You say, "Moschino"; I say, "Monsanto." You say, "Wonderbra"; I say, "<em>Wunderbar</em>." Moschino, Monsanto, Wonderbra, <em>wunderbar</em>: Let's call the whole thing off. <P> <P ALIGN=CENTER> <A HREF="../index.html" target="_top"> <IMG BORDER=0 SRC="../images/swim97.gif" ALT="Back to Swimsuit '97"> </A> <A HREF="http://www.cnnsi.com" target="_top"> <IMG BORDER=0 SRC="../images/si.gif" ALT="Back to CNNSI"> </A> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </body>