How the Bikini Reached the Beaches of California

When you are shopping for California bathing suits, you may not realize that bikinis have actually been around for thousands of years. They weren't always called bikinis, but art from the ancient world as far back as 1400 B.C. depicts women in bikini-like garments playing sports.

However, by the turn of the 20th century, women had taken to wearing modest suits for bathing. In Victorian times, there was even a device called a bathing machine that took women to the very edge of the water so that they could enter without anyone seeing what they were wearing. By the time the modern version of the bikini debuted in 1946, it was so scandalous that a stripper was hired to model it.

It wasn't the two-piece nature of the suit that shocked. Women had been wearing two-piece bathing suits on beaches for several years, but the bikini had a key difference. It revealed the navel.

Two different designers invented the bikini at roughly the same time, and both knew that it would be explosive. As a result, one called his new design the "atome" while the other named his the bikini after the atomic testing that had begun days earlier at Bikini Atoll.

In the 1950s, the bikini was deemed only appropriate for the French Riviera, but by 1960, the United States had embraced it as well. Today, you can choose from a huge variety of bikinis and other bathing suits for fun on California beaches.