The outrage that followed revealing fashion at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival may have felt dramatic, but history suggests a certain irony. While the Croisette is famously governed by rigid dress codes and traditional expectations — often leaving celebrities scrutinized for sheer fabrics and body-baring silhouettes — Cannes itself played a pivotal role in introducing one of the most controversial garments in fashion history to the world: the bikini.
Long before red carpet debates over nudity and propriety, it was Cannes that helped catapult the bikini from obscurity into the global spotlight. And at the center of that cultural shift stood Brigitte Bardot.
The Bikini Before Bardot
Two-piece garments resembling bikinis existed long before the 20th century. Mosaics dating back to around 400 AD at the Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily depict women exercising in bandeau tops and briefs, suggesting that abbreviated clothing for athletic or leisure purposes was not new. However, the modern bikini — defined by lingerie-like proportions and intentional exposure — emerged in the aftermath of World War II.
In 1946, two French designers separately claimed credit for inventing the bikini. Fashion designer Jacques Heim introduced the “Atome,” while mechanical engineer Louis Réard debuted a more daring version that revealed the navel. Réard ultimately patented the design, though public acceptance lagged far behind innovation.
The timing of the bikini’s debut was significant. Postwar Europe was entering a period of social emancipation, with young people embracing leisure, sunbathing, and personal freedom. Showing skin, once taboo, began to feel like an assertion of modernity. Yet widespread acceptance was slow and uneven.
Moral Panic and Global Bans
Outside the liberal enclaves of southern France, the bikini faced fierce resistance. In the United States, the Hays Code — introduced in 1934 — prohibited the display of navels on screen. Pope Pius XII publicly condemned the bikini as sinful, and several European countries, including Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium, enacted nationwide bans on the garment.
For many, the bikini symbolized moral decay. For others, it represented a thrilling new kind of freedom. It would take a singular cultural moment — and a singular figure — to tip the balance.
Brigitte Bardot at Cannes, 1953
That moment arrived in 1953, when an 18-year-old Brigitte Bardot appeared on the beaches of Cannes wearing a tropical-print bikini. The photos caused an international sensation.
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| Brigitte Bardot in 1953. Photo: Mirrorpix/Getty Images |
Sailors reportedly lined the boardwalk to watch Bardot pose, while onlookers dressed in coats, tights, and long skirts stared in disbelief. To audiences unfamiliar with her earlier film Manina, the Girl in the Bikini (1952), the images bordered on scandalous. Yet their allure was undeniable.
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| Kirk Douglas and Brigitte Bardot in 1953. Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images |
The photos were part of a calculated promotional effort. Bardot posed on beaches across the south of France to promote the film, but the impact extended far beyond marketing. The images circulated globally, transforming both Bardot and the bikini into symbols of youthful rebellion and sensual modernity.
Fashion editor Diana Vreeland later described the bikini as “the most important thing since the atom bomb,” a fitting analogy given that the garment was named after Bikini Atoll, the site of U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific. The cultural aftershock was similarly explosive.
Making the Bikini Mainstream
Thanks largely to Bardot’s Cannes moment, the bikini entered mainstream consciousness throughout the 1950s. As sexual norms loosened further in the 1960s, the swimsuit became emblematic of liberation, youth culture, and changing attitudes toward women’s bodies.
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| Natalie Wood stands on the shoulders of Steve Rowland at the Beach Ball in Malibu in 1956. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images |
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| Corinne Fontaine during the 16th Cannes Film Festival in 1963. PAUL LOUIS/Getty Images |
Following Bardot’s lead, other screen sirens such as Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren posed in bikinis during Cannes appearances, establishing a Riviera tradition that blended glamour, leisure, and provocation. The image of the beach-bound movie star became inseparable from the festival itself.
Cannes Then and Now
In contrast, it takes far more today to provoke the kind of outrage Bardot once inspired. When Irina Shayk and Iris Law walked the Croisette in exposed lingerie in 2023, the response was muted. In 2025, Kristen Stewart appeared in sheer pink Chanel with visible undergarments, prompting discussion but little genuine shock.
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| Anita Ekberg circa 1955. Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images |
What once ignited moral panic now barely registers. Perhaps only the most extreme gestures — a celebrity walking the red carpet nearly nude — could approach the level of attention Bardot commanded in the 1950s.
Ironically, while revealing clothing is now commonplace, restrictive dress codes persist. Until 2016, it was illegal in France for women to sunbathe topless with their faces and bodies obscured, a reminder that debates around autonomy and control over women’s bodies remain unresolved.
A Legacy That Still Matters
Brigitte Bardot’s bikini moment at Cannes was not just a fashion statement; it was a cultural turning point. By wearing a garment deemed scandalous, she challenged entrenched norms and reshaped public attitudes toward femininity, freedom, and self-expression.
As modern fashion continues to test boundaries on the Croisette and beyond, Bardot’s legacy endures as proof that dress codes, no matter how archaic, are always vulnerable to change — and that sometimes, all it takes is one woman on a beach to rewrite the rules.
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