Clothes editor who invented the swimsuit

By Kenneth Kwama

Jacques Heim, the French designer who invented the swimsuit never wanted people to refer to him as a designer, but preferred to be called an editor of clothes because of his penchant for creating tight fitting designs.

In 1944, Heim created his own two-piece bathing suit, which he described as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” His invention received rave reviews with some conservative newspapers referring to it as the “the world’s skimpiest invention.”

According to www.inventorspot.com, before his invention, women pranced around on beaches wearing flannel dresses and three-quarter length trousers. During that period, showing one’s knees was considered scandalous.

“History’s first modern swimsuits were inventions that covered as much as regular clothing. In early Victorian times, they were typically made from flannel or wool and consisted of jacket-like top and three-quarter-length pants,” states the website.

Fashion author Caroline Rennolds Milbank referred to Heim an “innovator by nature,” in her 1985 book, Couture: The Great Designers. The author wrote that through the 1950s, Heim addressed American needs for sportswear in innovative and utilitarian fabrics, while still remaining, in the vocabulary of the day, very ladylike.

sales sensitivity

If he was not driven by the market, says Milbank, he was at least keenly sensitive to it.

“Heim was a smart, eclectic designer of many styles, through consistent sales sensitivity, he transformed the fur business of his parents Isadore and Jeanne Heim, founded in 1898, and persevered and prospered as a designer for nearly four decades.”

Besides being an innovator, Heim conceived many design ideas, beginning with the possibilities of fur, beach and play outfits, the two-piece swimsuit, and the plane and planar simplifications of design in the youth-conscious 1960s.

He made a fashion breakthrough when he realised that fur could be worked as a fabric. As a result, wool and fur combinations, geometries of fur and textiles, and fur accents became hallmarks of the Heim fashion in the 1930s.

At the same time, alongside other designers, he was alert to the possibilities of elegant sportswear and observed bathing and sports costumes as inspiration. He aggressively conceived of ways in which fashion design could be vital to new audiences. Web reviews are unanimous that his designs endeared young audiences to fashion long before other couture designers could break even, and engendered early client loyalty besides being an impeccable medium of communication for the fashion industry of France.

“Heim understood the expression “old soldiers never die.” He never married a style or became one form’s advocate; instead, he had insisted on the business principle that fashion would thrive in change and adaptation,” wrote The New York Times in 1962.

By the 1930s, women’s swimsuits in Europe had taken the form of a halter-top and shorts. However, it wasn’t as racy as it sounds because the navel was still covered and only a tiny portion of skin showed between the two parts.

It took a bit longer for the style to reach North America. In World War II, fabric rationing saw the conservation of all unnecessary fabric. In fact, it was the uplifted mood at the end of the war that inspired the invention of the swimsuit whose creation brought a lot of turmoil. For some time, Heim had to hide to stay safe from moralists spread across Europe who were baying for his blood.

According to www.swimsuit-style.com, this was not the first furore ignited by a swimsuit. In the 1920s, the battles between proponents of scanty one-piece swimsuits and the guardians of public morality who favoured more modest swimwear often resulted in violence.

“Pitched, gang-style battles were known to occur throughout some countries. Many women were actually arrested for defying laws that banned scanty beachwear,” states the site.

why the ban

The swimsuit was originally shunned in many countries throughout the world and took quite some time to gain popularity. In 1951, bikinis, a tinier piece of swimsuit, were banned from beauty pageants because they were seen as giving an unfair advantage to the wearer and as potentially dangerous to the health of some judges.

It was believed that contestants wearing bikinis in the swimsuit competition would have an unfair advantage over their more modest competitors.

Historians and archaeologists suggest that the history of the swimsuit began far before the official introduction. According to www.swimsuit-style.com, wall paintings and murals from ancient Egypt boasted several pictures of women wearing costumes that looked surprisingly similar to modern-day swimsuits.

“Even before 1946, in several countries throughout the world, women were known to wear two-piece swimsuits. However, these swimsuits most often covered the navel and displayed very little of the midriff or back.”
Throughout the summer of 1946, and in later summers, swimsuits continued to shock their witnesses. As French women paraded across Paris runways in the revealing swimsuits, men were reportedly shocked.
Many newsmen believed the swimsuit would never be accepted as appropriate swimwear in the US and would forever remain as an article of attire worn solely by more extroverted French women.

However, the tinier swimsuit — the bikini was introduced to American fashion just one year after its birth in France. [e-mail]