Bikini Variants - Material

Material

Further information: History of clothing and textiles

The bikini precursors as well as the first modern bikinis were made of cotton and jersey and were mostly stripped or monochrome. Réard introduced the first printed material for bikini. By the 1970s, when American women were catching up with the more daring Europeans attitudes, bikini variants started to diversify widely. Flower patterns became popular in the late 1960s. Today bikinis are made with mostly made with treated fabric, having been stretched over a plastic mold, then baked in order to set its shape and create bikini brassieres. Fashion adviser Malia Mills has two basic criteria to check the material—it doesn't wrinkle into a bundle at the back, and nothing "falls out" when picking a towel or raising the arms. Bikinis are usually lined with fabric which is designed to stop them becoming transparent when wet.

When, in 1960s, swimsuit designers rediscovered lycra (DuPont's name for spandex), a stretch fiber that allowed them to stitch tinier pieces of fabric. Retailer Marks & Spencer reintroduced the material used as an alternative to nylon in swimsuits in the 1960s. Spandex expanded the range of novelty fabrics available to designers which meant suits could be made to fit like a second skin without heavy linings streamlined athletic styles, emphasizing high-tech fabrics and finishes. It allowed designers to create the string bikini, and allowed Rudi Gernreich to created the topless monokini. According to Kelly Killoren Bensimon in The Bikini Book, "The advent of Lycra allowed more women to wear a bikini. It didn't sag, it didn't bag, and it concealed and revealed. It wasn't so much like lingerie anymore." The stretch nylon bikini briefs and bras which complemented the adolescent boutique fashions of the 1960s also allowed those to be minimal. Women on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and Saint-Tropez went even further, forgoing all rear-view coverage to show off their thongs. For the female bodybuilder the material regulations are more stringent, as "the two pieces of the bikini are fastened together with two strings, and the fasteners as all as the bikini must not consist of metallic material or padding." A platinum bikini valued at US $9500 was made by Mappin and Webb of London in the 1977, and was worn by Miss United Kingdom in that year's Miss World beauty pageant. It was entered as a Guinness World Record for the most expensive bikini.

More uncommon fabrics are appearing around the world since 1960s that include paper-made bikinis and directly tan-through bikinis, the latter being a flimsy flesh-colored suit that allowed the sun's rays to penetrate the garment. Late 20th century designer Laura Jane created bikinis made of neoprene, the rubber material used to make wetsuits in 1989. Fernando Garcia, a bikini designer in South Beach, Miami, turns various exotic material into bikinis including black-and-Day-Glo, python skin and Mongolian lamb fringe and black fox material. Crochet, lace, PVC, raffia, fur, latex, velvet and other uncommon items are used as bikini material. New York inventor Andrew Schneider has invented a solar bikini that is covered with 40 flexible photovoltaic cells that feed into a USB connection that can plug straight into an iPod. Two hours of sunbaking is claimed by the inventor to be enough to charge an iPod shuffle. For better UV protection, as wet clothes have reduced protection against UV light, chemical company BASF has incorporated nanotechnology into bikinis. Made of Day-Glo leopard skin polyamide (nylon)-6 these bikinis have titanium dioxide embedded and provide a variable sunblock factor—80 for the beach and 15 for a spring day.