Bikini
A bikini or two-piece is a type of women's swimsuit, characterized by two separate parts - one covering the breasts (optionally in the case of the monokini), the other the groin (and optionally the buttocks), leaving an uncovered area between the two garments. It is often worn in hot weather or while swimming. The shapes of both parts of a bikini closely resemble women's underwear, and the lower part of a bikini can therefore range from the more revealing thong or g-string, to briefs, and modest square-cut shorts.
The bikini was named after the Bikini Atoll. It was the site of a nuclear weapon test called Operation Crossroads four days earlier, on July 1, in the Marshall Islands. The resoning for the name was that the burst of excitement created by it would be like a nuclear device. Monokini, a bikini variant, derives its name, as a back formation, from bikini, interpreting the first syllable as the Latin prefix bi- (meaning "two") and substituting for it mono- (meaning "one"), on the (perhaps intentionally) mistaken notion that the bi- element was the Greek prefix meaning "two". Jacques Heim called his bikini precursor the Atome (named for its size), while Louis Réard, the inventor of bikini, claimed to have "split the Atome" to make it smaller.
Bikini is the most popular beachwear around the globe, which is, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard, due to "the power of women, and not the power of fashion", as he explains, ""The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women." By mid 2000s, these two-piece bathing suits eveolved into an US$ 811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries
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