GLOSSARY

Swimwear
A swimsuit, bathing suit or swimming costume is an item of clothing designed to be worn for swimming. In New Zealand English and some areas of Australian English, swimsuits are usually called togs. This term is less common in other parts of the Commonwealth where it can also refer to clothes in general. Swimsuits can be skin-tight or loosely fitting and range from garments designed to preserve as much modesty as possible to garments designed to reveal as much of the body as possible without actual nudity. They are often lined with a fabric that prevents them from becoming transparent when wet.

Swimsuits
Swimsuits are designed to cover at least the genitals and in most cultures women's breasts. Men's swimsuit styles are swimming trunks such as shorts, boardshorts, jammers, speedo-style briefs, thongs, g-strings or bikini. Women's swimsuits are generally either one-pieces, bikinis or thongs. The most recent innovation is the burqini, a more modest garment designed for Muslim women; it covers the whole body and head (but not face) in a manner similar to a diver's wetsuit. The monokini, a style of swimsuit that most often takes the form of a bikini bottom without the corresponding top, leaves a woman's breasts uncovered. Monokinis are quite common in many places throughout South America and Europe, though due to particularly stringent taboos they are almost never seen in the United States, except in places with a strong European tourist influence. For pre-pubescent girls leaving the chest uncovered is sometimes considered acceptable. Special swimsuits for competitive swimming, designed to reduce skin drag, can resemble unitards. For some kinds of swimming and diving, special bodysuits called diveskins are worn. These suits are made from spandex and provide little thermal protection, but they do protect the skin from stings and abrasion. Most competitive swimmers also wear special swimsuits including partial and full bodysuits, racerback styles, jammers and racing briefs to assist their glide through the water and gain speed advantages (see competitive swimwear). Swimming without a bathing suit is a form of social nudity. Special nude beaches may be reserved for nude sunbathing and swimming. Swimming in the nude is also known by the slang term "skinny-dipping". As an alternative to a bathing suit some people use their trousers, underpants or T-shirt as a make-shift swimsuit. At beaches norms for this tend to be more relaxed than at swimming pools, which tend not to permit this because underwear is unlined, may become translucent, and may be perceived as unclean. Swimsuits are also worn for the purpose of body display in beauty pageants. Magazines like Sports Illustrated's annual "swimsuit issue" feature models and sports personalities in swimsuits.

Tank Suit
Tank suit, leotard or simply one-piece: Probably the most common form of one-piece swimsuit, the tank suit form is inspiration for the subsequent creation of the tank top as a mainstream article of clothing. The name "tank suit" is derived from the term "swimming tank", an obsolete term for what is now called a swimming pool.

Monokini
Monokini: a term used for different styles of one-piece swimsuits inspired by the bikini style. Most commonly, a monokini is a bikini bottom without the corresponding top, worn by women, that leaves the breasts bare. Sling bikinis are sometimes, though not often, referred to as monokinis. Monokini, sometimes referred to as a unikini, a term used for different styles of one-piece swimsuits, which all have in common that they are inspired by the bikini. The word is a back formation from bikini, interpreting the first syllable as the Latin prefix bi- "two" and substituting for it mono- "one", on the (perhaps intentionally) mistaken notion that the bi- element was the Greek prefix meaning "two".Greek mono- means 'single', but bikini comes from the name of the Bikini Atoll (a Marshall Islands atoll, since the 1940s applied to the two-piece bathing suit). In 1964, Rudi Gernreich, an Austrian fashion designer, designed the original monokini in the US. Gernreich also invented its name, and the word monokini is recorded in English since that same year. Gernreich's monokini looked like a one-piece swimsuit but cut off a bit below the breasts leaving them bare. It only had two small straps over the shoulders. It was not very successful. Many women who wanted to sunbathe topless simply wore the bottom part of a bikini. Manufacturers and retailers quickly adapted to selling tops and bottoms separately. Gernreich later created the lesser known pubikini. In the 1960s, the monokini led the way into the sexual revolution by emphasizing a woman's personal freedom of dress, even when her attire was provocative and exposed more skin than had been the norm during the more conservative 1950s. Today, many monokinis are designed as the ultimate in sexy swimwear, using chains, strings, and strategic strips of fabric to join the upper and lower portions of the suit while still covering the basics of the female form. Today's styles are decidedly less racy than Gernreich's original design, but nonetheless are a revealing style of swimsuit. The term monokini is also now used to indicate any topless swimsuit, particularly a bikini bottom worn without a bikini top. In recent years, the term monokini has come into use for topless bathing by women: where the bikini has two parts, the monokini is the lower part. Where monokinis are in use, the word bikini may jokingly refer to a two-piece outfit consisting of a monokini and a sun hat. The term was coined by Rudi Gernreich.

Thong Swimsuit
Thong swimsuit: One-piece swimsuit with thong back, buttocks exposed, otherwise ordinary.

Sling Bikini
Sling bikini: also known as a "suspender bikini", "suspender thong", "slingshot bikini" or just "slingshot". The slingshot is a one-piece suit which provides as little, or even less, coverage (or as much exposure) as a bikini. Usually, a slingshot resembles a bikini bottom, but rather than the straps going around the hips or waist, the side straps extend upwards to cover the breasts and go over the shoulders, leaving the entire sides of the torso uncovered, but the nipples and pubic area covered. Behind the neck, the straps join and reach down the back to become a thong.

Pretzel Suit
Pretzel suit: a one-piece suit similar to a sling bikini, but the straps encircle the torso around the bottom of the ribcage, forming a very high-sided bikini bottom; instead of the straps passing over the neck and down the back, they simply encircle the neck, joining the straps which pass around the midriff.

Bikini
Bikini is a type of women's swimsuit, characterized by two separate parts - one covering the breasts, the other the groin (and optionally the buttocks), leaving an uncovered area between the two garments. It is often worn in hot weather and while swimming. The shapes of both parts of a bikini closely resemble women's underwear, and the lower part of a bikini can therefore range from the more revealing thong or g-string to briefs and the more modest square-cut shorts. Sometimes the term bikini is used to describe the type of man's swimsuit also known as a speedo although real men's bikini swimsuits do exist that are not brief like.

String Bikini
A string bikini refers to a bikini swimsuit that is scantier and more revealing than the traditional bikinis. It gets its name from the string characteristics of its design. Rather than featuring a full single piece bottom, the string bikini consists of two triangular shaped pieces connected at the groin but not at the sides, where a thin "string" wraps around the waist connecting the two parts. String bikini tops are similar and are tied in place by the attached "string" pieces. String pieces can either be continuous or tied. It is claimed that Brazilian fashion model Rose de Primo created the first string bikini when she had to sew one with insufficient fabric available to her for a photoshoot. The first formal presentation of string bikini was done by Glen Tororich, a public relation agent, and his wife Brandi Perret-DuJon, a fashion model, for the opening of Le Petite Centre, a shopping area in the French Quarter of the New Orleans, Louisiana in 1974. Inspired by a picture of a Rio De Janeiro fashion model in an issue of Women's Wear Daily, they had local fashion designer Lapin to create it for the event. Models recruited by talent agent Peter Dasigner presented it by removing fur coats by Alberto Lemon on stage. The presentation was covered by local television stations and the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, and was sent out via the wire news services of the Associated Press and United Press International. String bikinis are popular in beaches and many women use them. Also male bodybuilders use string bikinis to better show their muscles in competitions. A string bikini is also a type of undergarment worn by both men and women. It is similar to but more revealing than a bikini. Women's string bikini underwear normally resembles the bottom of the string bikini bathing suit. Men's string bikini underwear consists of a front and rear section joined at the crotch but not at the sides. The tops of each piece join with either an elastic waistband similar to that found on briefs or to a thin piece of material or "string," leaving the sides exposed except for the string or waistband.

Microkini
A microkini is an extremely skimpy form of a bikini. The designs for both women and men typically use only enough fabric to cover the genitalia. Any additional straps are merely to keep the garment attached to the wearer's body. Some variations of the microkini use adhesive or wire to hold the fabric in place over the genitals. These designs do not require any additional side straps to keep the garment in place. The most radical variations of the microkini are simply thin straps which cover little or none of the wearer's body. The term "microkini" was coined in 1995 in an online community dedicated to enthusiasts of the extreme designs. The modern microkini's origins can be traced back to the early-1970's in Venice Beach, California where, after legislation was passed banning nudity there, beach regulars began making their own tiny bathing suits to comply with the new laws. The homemade suits were often little more than tiny, remnant pieces of fabric, crudely sewn together with thin twine or fishing line. Then around 1975, a local bikini shop picked up on the idea and began to make more practical styles using modern materials. Soon after, several adult film actresses began wearing the shop's suits in their films and the style began to catch on. Microkinis fill a niche between nudism and conservative swimwear. In addition to keeping the wearer just within legal limits of decency, they have also evolved to become the ultimate in provocative sun wear...

Tankini
The tankini is a swimsuit combining a tank top and a bikini bottom of the traditional bikini that generally consists of the barest minimal fabric coverage for the top and bottoms, both are reduced to triangles of cloth connected by strings. The tankini is distinguished from the classic bikini by the difference in tops, the top of the tankini essentially being a tank top. The tankini top extends downward to somewhere between just above the navel and the top of the hips. The word is a combination of tank (as in tank top) and the end of the word bikini. This type of swimwear is considered by some to provide modesty closer to a one piece suit with the convenience of a two piece suit, e.g. the entire suit need not be removed in order to use the restroom. Tankinis come in a variety of styles, colors and shapes, some include features such as integrated push-up bras. A tankini for pregnant women also exists, which is divided in front exposing the navel. It is named the "peekaboo tankini".

Bikini Underwear
Bikini underwear is a type of undergarment worn by both men and women that is similar in size and revealing nature to the bottom half of a bikini bathing suit, popular among women. For women a bikini can refer to virtually any tight, skimpy, or revealing undergarment that provides less coverage to the midsection than traditional underwear, panties or knickers. For men, a bikini is a type of undergarment that is smaller and more revealing than men's briefs. Men's bikinis can have both high or low side panels and normally rest lower than the true waist at the upper hips. Most men's bikinis lack a button or flap front. Many do not have a visible waistband like briefs.

Bikini Underwear
Bikini underwear is a type of undergarment worn by both men and women that is similar in size and revealing nature to the bottom half of a bikini bathing suit, popular among women. For women a bikini can refer to virtually any tight, skimpy, or revealing undergarment that provides less coverage to the midsection than traditional underwear, panties or knickers. For men, a bikini is a type of undergarment that is smaller and more revealing than men's briefs. Men's bikinis can have both high or low side panels and normally rest lower than the true waist at the upper hips. Most men's bikinis lack a button or flap front. Many do not have a visible waistband like briefs.

Pubkini
The pubikini is a bathing suit which was created by Rudi Gernreich, the fashion designer who also created the monokini. The pubikini is a small piece of fabric that hugs the hips and buttocks but leaves the pubic region exposed.

Resource: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





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