Why Do Women Wear Bikinis?
The bikini is one fashion item that has seemed to cause many controversies right from its step into the limelight in the 1940s. In the year 2021, when wearing bikinis have become the norm, it is almost impossible to believe the controversy they cause and are still driving. For such a thin piece of clothing, it causes quite a lot of fuss.
Bikinis are triangular fabric pieces covering the wearer’s breasts and pubic area, a two-piece designed for swimming. It is usually worn to the beach or pools, and its popularity usually increases during the summer due to the heat and the number of women who go to swimming pools or water parks to cool off and catch a break from the heat. Before we got into the eras of bikinis, women were forced to wear swimwear that was by no means comfortable or even practical.
Bathing clothes and swimwear with sleeves, frills, and bloomers dominated the eighteen hundreds. Swimming costumes with leggings and skirts that went down at least half your thigh were quite popular in the early nineteen hundreds. There are records of women being given tickets and even arrested, as in Annette Kellerman’s case for wearing swimwear that was considered “indecent exposure.”
Throughout history and even modern times, women have had to explain almost all their actions to society to make those actions more acceptable. People in history and even modern times believed that a woman wearing a bikini was immodest and for the sole purpose of seducing men; some have sexualized the bikini, an item created as a practical swimwear option. And some say now that women wear bikinis to show off their ‘summer body,’ but why do women wear bikinis?
They want to:
The easiest and probably the most valid answer to this is that women wear bikinis because they want to. It is almost hilarious that people expect some particular reason for women wearing bikinis; they are clothing items, after all, and are designed to be worn. Women do not need to provide select reasons as to why they would choose to wear a piece of clothing.
Tanning:
Tanning, it would seem, is just as ancient as the bikini itself. In the 1940s, it is said that French designer Louis Reard noticed that women at the beach kept adjusting their swimwear to get more tan; this proved very instrumental in the design of his swimwear, which he called le bikini, after the atomic bomb. This swimwear went on to become the game-changer in women’s swimwear fashion, a fashion atomic bomb. ‘Catching the sun’ in bikinis allows for more even tans and a minimum amount of tan lines; this shows in bikinis’ designs till now. Some bikinis tops and bottoms come with string ties that are normally unfastened when tanning to prevent those lines, some new bikini fabrics are made so that you can tan through them without even having to take them off!
Practicality and comfort:
the bikini is swimwear. Women wear a bikini because they allow for easy movements when swimming but for more motion. Other swimwear can be restricting and can make swimming a little uncomfortable. They are usually made from elastic fabric resistant to the salt or chlorine in the water, and that dry out faster. All of these reasons make the bikini the ideal swimwear for women to choose to wear. Women usually wear bikinis in the summer, a period of intense heat and sunshine; the bikini is the best clothing for women to wear during that period, with fewer layers to prevent the heat, allowing the pores on the skin to breathe while allowing for better circulation of air on the body and reduce sweating.
Fashion:
in only this regard, perhaps the bikini should be considered as something other than swimwear. The bikini can be viewed as a fashion statement, not everyone who puts on a bikini and heads to a beach eventually goes into the water, but they can look good just sitting by the water. The bikini allows women to be confident in their body and their skin. Women of all shapes and sizes put on a bikini because they feel confident in their bodies and are not ashamed of it. Apart from the fact, the bikini is the most fashionable of the swimwear. Who says you can’t look good swimming? If we consider how much of a fashion and even cultural impact the le bikini of the 1940s made, we cannot deny that wearing a bikini is a fashion statement.
Sports:
a lot of women in professional sportswear bikinis because for varying reasons. Comfort, less restriction, and more flexibility are part of such reasons. Track and field stars and other athletes that participate in sports such as out-door volleyball, bodybuilding, and the like often wear bikinis as their uniforms for sporting activities.
It would seem that there is an abundance of reasons why women choose the bikini out of all other swimwear options, so much so that it seems the appropriate question should be, why do women not wear a bikini? Bikinis, apart from having a cool history, have become a swimwear that doubles as popular fashion. With bikinis, it would seem that women no longer have to choose between comfort and fashionable as they can get both from the bikini. They are, without a doubt, the most popular form of swimwear for women.
An Indian businesswoman named Shraddha Shah said, “The bikini isn’t meant to titillate. Like you wear work clothes to the office, you wear a bikini to the beach,” and it is that simple. Women should not have to explain the why behind their outfits, and the over-sexualization of women in bikinis need to stop. Flaunting a body that they feel confident in is one reason women wear a bikini. Still, it is not the only reason we have seen, and whatever reason a woman, regardless of age or body type, choose to wear a bikini should remain her business solely.
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