History of topless fashion: who undressed first and for what?

Sunbathing with open inerhom is now normal in many parts of the world. However, 50 years ago everything was completely different. Today I will tell you how the topless fashion began and who was the first to undress on camera.

How I came to this topic

By chance I met an old friend. We hadn’t seen each other for more than a year, so we sat down in a cafe for a few hours: there was a lot of news. Larisa laughingly told how she vacationed in Spain last summer, where her husband took her. Nice hotel, wonderful beach, crowd, weather, cuisine - everything is great. She, of course, prepared in advance to feel comfortable and look on point. But on the beach something happened that she did not expect at all. When she was there for the first time, she was surprised to find that all representatives of the fair sex sunbathe in swimsuits without a top.

She, in her beautiful and expensive bathing suit, felt awkward. Neither young ladies, nor middle-aged women, nor even the elderly had swimsuit tops. Larisa assessed herself sensibly: “a plump woman over 50.”So what should we do? She did not immediately decide to join the maritime society. But it happened anyway, and now she has this experience. Curiosity led me to find out more about this topic.

Topless style: from fashion show on the beach

Although my friend was surprised, this format of a swimsuit is not an innovation of the 21st century.

Reference. A woman in a topless swimsuit first appeared on the beach 55 years ago - in June 1965.

And this happened in the States, which for a long time adhered to respectable and even puritanical morality. However, everything is changing, and changes have come to women’s beach fashion. Is it true, The first time a girl with bare breasts appeared in public was not on the beach, but in a fashion magazine.

The idea to release a photo with a “naked” model came to the mind of an American designer Rudi Gernreich.

Deciding not to stop at skimpy bikinis, he 1964 year I wanted to show a girl in a special swimsuit. It had virtually no top: the bottom was held in place by a pair of thin straps.

It was not so easy to realize the plan. Gernreich coped with the swimsuit model, but finding a girl to demonstrate it was more difficult. Finally consent was obtained from Peggy Moffitt. But she set two conditions:

• Her husband takes the pictures.
• The photo session does not take place in a photo studio.

The finished photographs, the most decent of which you see, were also not immediately “attached” to the magazine. But when they appeared, they produced the effect of a bomb exploding.

How women reacted to topless fashion

History has also preserved the name of the first girl who appeared without a top on the beach. I decided to do it in June 1965, American model Tony Lee Shelley.

And although the 19-year-old beauty, who was swimming in the lake, was met on the shore by Michigan State Police, the journalists managed to take photographs. They were seen by many men and women not only in America, but throughout the world.

Europeans the new swimsuit model was perceived as a symbol of freedom, as a sign that female enslavement was coming to an end. It was clear that the tradition of covering girls’ bodies as much as possible would no longer be able to return as dominant.

The stars who were the first to support topless

The development of new fashion was also facilitated by the attitude of recognized beauties.

French actress Brigitte Bardot was one of the first to show her breasts to the public.. In this form, in 1967, photographers of the luxurious resort of Saint-Tropez, where the beauty was vacationing, caught her.

A year later, another actress gave rise to conversation - an American Jane Fonda. But for tanning, she chose not a European resort, but the very center of New York. But America, even now, is wary of toplessness!

Topless: 55 years later

Today, attitudes towards scandalous fashion remain ambiguous.

And these days, stars often appear without a swimsuit top.

No one is surprised by the fashion that reigns on many beaches.

Reference. Sunbathing without a top is not reprehensible in Europe and South America.

But also in other parts of the world there are movements defending women's rights to open breasts. And not only that. However, many girls and mature ladies, even without considering themselves timid and reserved, are still embarrassed to go to the beach without a swimsuit.

Are you ready to bare your breasts for an even tan, without traces of a swimsuit top?