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The bikini is perhaps the most popular female beachwear around the globe, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard due to "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." By the mid 2000s, bikinis had become a $811 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the suntanning industries.
In 1994, the bikini became the official uniform of women's Olympic beach volleyball, sparking controversy, with some sports officials considering it exploitative and unpractical in colder weather, and athletes admitting that the regulation uniform is intended to be "sexy" and to draw attention. Dancers, sex appeal and bikinis worn by women players as much as athletic ability made beach volleyball the fifth largest television audience of all the sports at the Games at Bondi Beach in Australia in 2000 Olympics. The popularity of Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, a video game for Xbox, was attributed to the scantily clad women.
The term men's bikini is used to describe types of men's swimsuits, men's underwear, or similar garments. Men's bikinis can have both high or low side panels, string sides or tie sides, and most lack a button or flap front. Many do not have a visible waistband like briefs. Suits less than 1.5 inches wide at the hips are less common for sporting purposes and are most often worn for recreation, fashion, and sun tanning. An example of this style, known as the posing brief, is the standard for competitions in the sport of bodybuilding. Male punk rock musicians have performed on the stage wearing women's bikini briefs. The 2000 Bollywood film Hera Pheri shows men sunbathing in bikinis, who were mistakenly believed to be girls from a distance by the protagonist.
From a 1949 Los Angeles Times report: "The bathing beauty queen—blond Bebe Shopp, 18, of Hopkins, Minn.—got an enthusiastic welcome in Paris, but she said she hasn't changed her mind about French swim suits. ... 'I don't approve of Bikini suits for American girls,' Bebe told her French interviewers. 'The French girls can wear them if they want to, but I still don't approve of them on American girls." Brigitte Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil) (1952) in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. with Bardot identified as the original Cannes bathing beauty.
While two-piece bathing suits had been worn on the beach before, the modern bikini was invented by French engineer Louis Réard in 1946. He named it after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, the site of the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests in July that year.

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