MUSE MONDAY
It's always fun to have to have Susie Black on Discover... This Muse Monday post is fun and informative. Who would think the bikini had a history? Read on and enjoy!
As
a ladies’ swimwear sales executive, I considered the bikini the one article of
clothing closest to my heart. Now that I
am a humorous cozy mystery author, I write what I know. So, all the stories in
my award-winning Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series take place in the ladies’
swimwear industry. So, naturally, my post is about the history of the bikini:
History
of the Bikini:
The
iconic bikini is such a summer staple that the style has its own day of
recognition. On July 5th, we
celebrate National Bikini Day. To see how integral a part of fashion the bikini
is, it’s important to know how the style came to be. Here is a look at the
interesting and surprisingly long history of this classic swimsuit style:
Evidence
of bikini-style women's clothing dates to as early as 5600 BC, and the history
of the bikini can be traced back to that era. Illustrations of women
wearing bikini-like garments during competitive athletic events in the Roman
era have been found in several locations, the most famous of which is
at Villa Romana del Casale.
Although
two-piece bathing suits were being used by women as early as the 1930s, the
bikini is commonly dated to July 5, 1946, when, partly due to material
rationing after World War II, French engineer Louis Reard introduced the
modern bikini, modeled by Micheline Bernardini. Reard named his design for
the Bikini Atoll, where the first post-war tests of the atomic bomb were
taking place.
French
women welcomed the design, but the Catholic Church, some media, and a
majority of the public initially thought the skimpy design risqué or even
scandalous. Contestants in the first Miss World beauty pageant wore
bikinis in 1951, but the style was later banned from the competition.
Actress Brigitte Bardot drew attention when she was photographed wearing a
bikini on the beach during the Cannes Film Festival in 1953. Other
actresses, including Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, also received
press attention when the stars wore bikinis. During the early 1960s, the design
appeared on the covers of Playboy and Sports Illustrated, giving them
additional legitimacy. Ursula Andress made a huge impact when she emerged
from the surf wearing what is now an iconic bikini in the James Bond
movie Dr. No (1962). The deerskin bikini Raquel Welch wore in
the film One Million Years B.C (1966) turned her into an
international sex symbol and was described as a definitive look of the 1960s.
The
bikini gradually gained wide acceptance in Western society. According to
French fashion historian Olivier Saillard, the bikini is perhaps the most
popular type of women’s beachwear around the globe because of "the power
of women, and not the power of fashion". As he explains, "The
emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of
women."[1] By the early
2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million annual business, and boosted
spin-off services like bikini waxing and tanning salons. CREDIT:
WIKIPEDIA
Death by Coconut is the 7th
book in my award-winning Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series.
Blurb: Obnoxious Florida Mystique
Swimwear sales rep Simon Posnick was universally despised by competitors,
customers, and employees alike. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the lying,
cheating, scoundrel dead. The question was, who didn’t? The Laurie’s Fashions'
swimsuit buyer and Mermaid Swimwear President, Holly Schlivnik’s career mentor,
Mariel Levine, is wrongly arrested for murdering Posnick by jamming the jagged
edge of a coconut shell into the base of his skull. The wisecracking,
irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But
the trail is wrought with more dangerous animals of the human type than the
alligators and black pythons in the Everglades. Everything turns out
differently than the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a killer
hellbent on revenge.
Tagline: Lucy Ricardo morphs into Miss
Marple
Excerpt: I reached into the well and
pulled the lug wrench out. I ran back to the blue car and smashed the lug
wrench into the driver’s side back window. It took three swings before the
glass shattered. I used the lug wrench to smack the remaining glass shards out
of the frame. I gingerly reached in and unlocked the door. I opened the door
and hopped into the back seat, climbed over, and onto the passenger’s front
seat. I opened my messenger bag and pulled out my cell phone. I clicked on the
flashlight and leaned over to get closer to the body. Blood was splattered all
over the car. I gagged as I recognized Avril Wilts’ blood-drenched tiger print
jumpsuit on the torso draped across the steering wheel.
Alert the media. For the first
time in my life, I didn’t burst out laughing upon discovering a corpse. Or the
tiger print jumpsuit rendered me speechless. Flip a coin.
I opened the front passenger door
and stretched across the seat on my belly to position my head under the body to
check if she was breathing. I was careful not to touch or move the body. I
didn’t need an MD next to my name to make a diagnosis. Avril Wilts was as dead
as it gets. A half-dollar-sized round hole in the lower part of the front of
her neck was caused by a self-inflicted gunshot from the .38 Special Lady Smith
pistol clamped tightly in Avril Wilts’ right hand. A copy of yesterday’s East
Coast Apparel News with the headline
Bikini Buyer Beats Bust
Coconut Killer at Large
was next to a blood-splattered, typed suicide note
under Avril’s right hand. I twisted my torso into a pretzel and read the note:
“I killed Simon
Posnick. I can’t live with the guilt. God forgive me.”
****
Twenty minutes later, sirens
shrieked a pulsing series of ear-splitting wails, and bubble lights blazed as
Mo Lehrman, two sets of uniforms in two patrol cars, the Miami-Dade Medical
Examiner’s wagon carrying Jazzy and her team, a crime scene team, and an EMT
crew bringing up the rear, all converged on the back parking lot of the
convention center. Mo parked his car and joined our trio. He pointed to the
body slumped over the car’s steering wheel. “Do you recognize the victim?”
I nodded. “Avril Wilts.” I
grinned. “It turned out she had a good excuse for not being available to answer
our questions.”
A
Bit About the Author:
Named Best US Author of the Year by
N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was
born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the
protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel
sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk.
Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in
humorous mysteries.
She
reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit
with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican
vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and
ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated
walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp
collector and ardent sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has
one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm
on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
E-mail: mysteries.authorsusieblack@gmail.com
Social Media
Links:
Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
Facebook: Susie Black, author of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery
Series | Facebook
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries
Instagram:
Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and
videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/
Substack:
Substack Home
-Susie Black
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@author_susie_black_
X: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) / X
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/susieblackwritescozies
Susie Black Books - BookBub
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21437641.Susie_BlackDeath
by Coconut buy links:
Death
by Coconut buy links:
https://books2read.com/Death-by-Coconut
https://books2read.com/u/3LPx00
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Coconut-Holly-Swimsuit-Mystery/dp/B0GX9FZDNP
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-coconut-susie-black/1149893841?
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=Death+by+Coconut
.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)