Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

The real reason French women don't get fat can be summarized in one chic word: bikini.

Sixty years ago this month, a nude dancer named Micheline Bernardini modeled a bikini at a poolside fashion show in Paris on July 5, 1946.

That day, a star of a swimsuit was born. Its designer, a French automotive engineer, named it after a string of firm, tightly packed islets called the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Louis Reard, the son of a lingerie salesman, believed his creation would cause more visceral explosions than the atomic bomb tests the U.S. Army had set off four days earlier on July 1, 1946, at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Reard's teeny-weeny publicity stunt paid off. On the French Riviera, where young sunbathers were already rolling up their suits to absorb more tanning rays, the bikini spread quickly. In 1956, French actress Brigitte Bardot wore one in Roger Vadim's film "And God Created Woman."

	Ursula Andress in 1962's white bikini. Click photo for larger image.

Many women who wore, modeled, designed or photographed bikinis believed the swimwear was a great leap forward in beach fashion, as well as a liberation from the heavy, cumbersome suits that had been seen on the water.

"I think that anything that allows women to feel confident in their bodies is a good thing. That is something that the bikini allowed for women," said Marilyn Yalom, author of "A History of the Breast" and a senior scholar at Stanford University.

Ursula Andress personified that brand of confidence six years later, in 1962. Male moviegoers chorused "Yes!" when the Swiss actress emerged from the sea in a white bikini during "Dr. No," the first James Bond film.

Not all approved of the new look. In 1964, the Vatican banned the wearing of bikinis in Catholic countries, according to Kelly Killoren Bensimon, author of recently published "The Bikini Book."

In the United States, Cole of California, a major swimwear company, produced its first bikini in 1959, but the new style did not attain widespread popularity here until Annette Funicello wore a bikini in the 1965 film "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."

	Walt Disney Walt Disney resisted allowing Annette Funicello to wear a bikini until 1965. Click photo for larger image.

Up until then, Funicello, under orders from the Walt Disney Co., had worn the more modest two-piece, which covered her navel, for such films as "Beach Party" and the many beach movies that followed.

Bursting into the mainstream

The woman whose work gave a mass-market boost to the bikini's fortunes is Julie Campbell, a photographer who spent 38 years capturing images of some of the world's best-known models for the cover of Sports Illustrated.

That issue generated millions in revenue and ushered in the age of such super models as Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Kathy Ireland and Cindy Crawford.

"The bikini in America was much more of a sensation because it exposed more skin. People had to start exercising. The bikini was the direct cause of Americans becoming body-conscious to be fit and to eat healthier," Campbell said in a recent interview.

In 1965, a 17-year-old California girl named Sue Peterson appeared on Sports Illustrated's cover wearing a one-piece bathing suit with cut-out side panels. Compared with today's revealing fashion ads, the image is unbelievably tame.

"She was so beautiful and so unaffected. She never put makeup on unless she had to for a picture. She hated that cover because she thought she was so overweight in it. That was my first issue. She was a young girl with a Rubenesque figure and no makeup, walking on a beach," Campbell recalled.

	Raquel Welch in a 1967 rendition. Click photo for larger image.

Editors at Sports Illustrated liked Peterson's natural California look, seeing it as an antidote to the emaciated appearance popularized by the British fashion model Twiggy.

Some Sports Illustrated readers wrote to say they loved Peterson's picture; one man offered marriage.

But another angry letter writer was not happy, according to Michael MacCambridge, author of "The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine."

"Perhaps you do not know it, but nudity is more destructive to our youth than an atom bomb," the reader wrote.

Obviously, people's attitudes -- whether religious or cultural -- have a lot to do with who wears bikinis and how people feel about them. In Brazil, for example, bikinis sell briskly and are worn confidently by women of all ages.

"There's a greater acceptance of one's body. You have a whole different culture, a very sensual culture and a very life-affirming culture," Ms. Yalom said. "I wouldn't think the Catholic Church had any effect on Brazil."

Vicki McGarry, fashion director for Women's Health magazine, said Brazilians "have bikini bodies. They grew up with this lifestyle. Brazilians wear bikinis in the way that Americans wear sneakers or blue jeans."

	Pamela Anderson in a lettuce bikini. Click photo for larger image.

The California look

While some Americans were squeamish about the bikini, young women eagerly embraced the more modest two-piece. Cathy Mate Carberry, who grew up on Pittsburgh's South Side, bought her first two-piece bathing suit in 1966.

"At that time, the '60s music would spotlight fast cars and sun and surfing. We all wanted to look like the California girls on the beach. You wanted to get that two-piece bathing suit."

Ms. Carberry donned her burgundy and white-checked two-piece, joined her high school girlfriends and waded into waist-deep water at Kennywood Park's swimming pool.

"The back popped open. It was flapping around in the water. My girlfriend Sheila thought that was hilarious," Ms. Carberry said, adding that she clasped her arms to her sides as she dashed to the ladies' room to rehook the top of her suit.

"Nowadays, that wouldn't matter one iota," said Ms. Carberry, 56, a dental hygienist from Pleasant Hills.

A few years later, Ms. Carberry bought a more revealing suit with a peach and green floral pattern on a cream-colored background.

"I felt so pretty in it. It was such an improvement over the first one."

Nowadays, Ms. Carberry prefers a one-piece suit in a solid blue or rose.

	Assouline Halle Berry in one of the latest incarnations of the swimsuit. Click photo for larger image.

How they're changing

The single greatest advancement in bikini technology has been the use of Extra Life Lycra, which stands up to chlorine and salt water, Ms. McGarry said, adding that the fabric is patented and made by a division of DuPont.

"Female surfing has been on the rise so there's a lot more emphasis on bikinis that actually perform," she added.

For some time now, it's been possible for women to buy bikinis as separates, mixing and matching tops and bottoms to suit their bodies.

Ms. McGarry favors the tankini top from Land's End because the catalog company offers a virtual model into which women can plug their body sizes. A tankini is a top with a fitted bra top that covers the stomach and leaves a sliver of flesh showing between it and the bikini bottom.

The Land's End virtual model, Ms. McGarry said, "will actually show you, with some accuracy, what it's going to look like on you. I like my chest covered and everything tucked in. I have an industrial-strength tankini top."

Kathy Ireland demonstrated an industrial strength sense of humor while filming on location during the 1990s on a beach in South Africa.

The shoot was difficult to produce because there were photographers from "Extra," "Entertainment Tonight" and Sports Illustrated, all of whom were shooting videos, in addition to Ms. Campbell's shoot for the magazine's layout.

"The models didn't know who to look at. I had Kathy in a zebra-striped bikini with a thong bottom," Ms. Campbell said, adding that some photographers were "shooting from every angle," including from behind.

Ireland walked out of the water with her hands covering her derriere for a few minutes. When she returned to the water and resumed posing, photographers who had been trying to photograph her from behind got a surprise.

	Josephine Baker in 1936 in a precursor to the bikini. Click photo for larger image. Interesting bikini statistics: Percentage who have been to a nude beach: 9. Percentage who have let their top down: 41. Percentage who have been attacked by seagulls for food: 27. Percentage who have skinny- dipped in a lake: 53. Percentage who have skinny- dipped in the ocean: 35.

"When we finished that scene," Ms. Campbell said, she realized that Ireland had, "taken silver gaffer's tape and put an X on each bun. That was so Kathy!"

Bikini stats

The average woman would rather undergo dental work than shop for a new swimsuit, according to Women's Health magazine.

Nonetheless, the average woman owns three swim suits -- probably one to wear, another to wash and a third just to lounge in while looking luscious by the pool.

The top three activities that dominate the average woman's beach time serve as a sort of relaxation hat trick -- sunbathing, reading a magazine or napping.

The top two behaviors the average woman would ban at the beach, if she could, are smoking and screaming children. People in unflattering suits also would be verboten.

One out of every two women avoid tanning altogether.

Only 2 percent of bikini wearers appear in a thong, a style of bikini bottom that reveals the buttocks.