Monokini Swimwear From Risque To Fashionable

Monokini swimwear was invented by an Austrian American fashion designer named Rudy Gehnreich in 1964. Gehnreich also invented the word monokini. His monokini was a topless one piece bathing suit with a very modest bottom and two thin straps failing to cover up the top part. Despite an outraged reaction from authorities, the avant garde monokini was an air angry bird instant hit with American shoppers. Gehnreich sold 3,000 swimsuits at $24 a piece.The monokini was introduced at a time when strict social mores were being questioned. The nudist movement was embroiled in many legal challenges at the time from being banned from selling nudist publications to Air Swimmers running nudist retreats. The original monokini, despite its initial success, never really became popular in the US because people wearing them angry bird were arrested for indecent exposure. Even in St. Tropez, France, it was banned at first.The contemporary monokini is a more modest swimsuit with a bottom and a top. It resembles a one piece swimsuit from the front and resembles a bikini from the back. The main distinction about the swim suit is the cutouts on the sides of the front part, uniting the top and the bottom.The monokini bottom can vary in cut, allowing as much or as little coverage as desired. Some monokini bottoms are scarcely G strings while other bottoms provide complete coverage to the wearer.Top and bottom pieces are creatively joined by a variety of materials and textures ranging from fabric to gold colored mesh and chains. Monokinis are available in a wide selection of styles from the ring top and bottom, the triangle, halter and the bandeau, a sort of cutout in reverse with the middle part of the torso showing.They are definitely not for every figure shape. If the wearer is waifish, the swimsuit will advertise the thinness. It really demands a well proportioned, hour glass figure since the top and the bottom only come in one size, unlike mix and match bikinis. But monokinis remain sexier than bikinis, fashion experts agree, because more is covered up, leaving more to the imagination.