On July 5, 1946, French engineer and fashion designer Louis Réard unveiled the bikini at the Piscine Molitor swimming pool in Paris, introducing a swimsuit that would become one of the most influential fashion designs of the twentieth century. Réard's creation consisted of just four small pieces of fabric connected by string, exposing the wearer's navel for the first time in a modern swimsuit. It used only about 30 inches of material, making it far smaller than any commercially available two-piece of the era. He named it the "bikini" after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, where the United States had recently conducted a series of nuclear tests, believing his design would create an equally explosive public reaction. The swimsuit proved so controversial that no professional fashion model agreed to wear it. Instead, Réard hired Micheline Bernardini, a 19-year-old dancer from the Casino de Paris, to model the bikini at its public debut. The gamble paid off. Bernardini reportedly received tens of thousands of fan letters, and the unveiling became an international sensation. Although the bikini quickly gained attention, many countries initially banned or discouraged it on public beaches, considering it too revealing. Over the following decades, changing social attitudes, cinema, popular music, and beach culture transformed the once-scandalous design into one of the world's most recognizable and enduring items of clothing.