We’ve already discovered the Met Museum has a serious shoe fetish and that they’re hoarding some seriously good party dresses in their archives, so in the height of bathing suit season, I thought we might have a snoop around their swimwear closet. Let’s dive in…
Left: Designer unknown (American / wool) ca. 1940 / Right: Carolyn Schnurer, 1955
Left: Designer unknown (British) ca. 1920s / Right: Gantner of California, 1925
Left: Givenchy, 1984/ Right: Carolyn Schnurer, 1952
Unknown American designer, ca. 1920
Left and right: Claire McCardell ca. 1945 – 1946
Left: Hermès, 1950s / Right: Tom Brigance, 1952
Left: Fendi ca. 1991 / Right: Carolyn Schnurer, 1950
Left:Rudi Gernreich, 1965 / Right: Carolyn Schnurer, ca. 1953
Left:Rudi Gernreich, 1970/ Right: Designer unknown (American) 1930s
Left: Emilio Pucci ca. 1969 / Right: Carolyn Schnurer, 1955
Left: Designer unknown, ca. 1878–80 / Right: Designer unknown, 1950s
Left: Rudi Gernreich ca. 1963 / right: Tom Brigance, 1960
Left: Rudi Gernreich, 1967 / Right: Designer unknown (American) 1977
Rudi Gernreich, 1964. The first American model to pose in the swimsuit, Peggy Moffitt, received death threats, but the monokini found itself more at home unsurprisingly in Paris, at the legendary Piscine Molitor, where the first bikini was revealed to the world nearly twenty years earlier in 1946. Find all the photos of the monokini’s world premier in Paris here.
