Bikinis Can Teach Us How Ideas Spread

I was kindly invited to talk about the rise of one-piece swimsuits on Radio Night Live with Kevin McCullough this past Saturday. I ran through a quick history of the bikini — how it was invented by a French designer about 70 years ago, who had to get a stripper to debut his piece because the models at the time thought it was too risque. The bikini was initially met with resistance in America and criticized for its scandalous exposure of the belly button. As Slate covered it:

A few years ago, Sports Illustrated dug up a 1957 issue of Modern Girl that declared: ‘It is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing.

But through the 60’s it quickly became ubiquitous on American shores. Now, despite getting smaller and smaller over more than half a century, the tiny patches of fabric are totally banal (even as one-pieces are surging in popularity).

The rise of the bikini should be a lesson to Americans that what initially scandalizes the masses can become the status quo in the time it takes to say, “It can’t happen here.” That has implications beyond fashion, to the new Sexual Revolution and the trans agenda, to the rising popularity of socialism and more. SOGI laws are cropping up in cities across the country, transgender “curricula” is being introduced to kindergartners, and taxpayers may foot the bill for trans surgery if deemed “medically necessary.” Just ten or even five years ago, this sea change would have been deemed extremely implausible to the vast majority of Americans. Yet here we are, and with today’s instantaneous communication, ideas, like fashion, spread faster and farther than ever before.

Next time you spot a bikini, think about that.