The modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer but by 1946 he was running his mother’s lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergères in Paris. Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume. Réard could not find a model to wear his design. He ended up hiring Micheline Bernardini, a 19yo nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. It was introduced on July 5 at Piscine Molitor, a public pool in Paris.
