In which year did Louis Réard invent the bikini?

Louis Réard (1897 – 16 September 1984) was a French automobile engineer and clothes designer. He is best known for launching a two-piece swimsuit in 1946, which he called the bikini.

Réard was a mechanical engineer who had taken over his mother's lingerie business in about 1940 near Les Folies Bergères in Paris and became a clothes designer. While on St. Tropez beaches, he noticed women rolling up the edges of their swimsuits to get a better tan, which inspired him to design a swimsuit with the midriff exposed.

In May 1946, Jacques Heim produced a two-piece swimsuit that he named the "Atome," which he advertised as the world's "smallest bathing suit". The bottom of Heim's swimsuit was just large enough to cover the wearer's navel. To promote his new design, Heim hired skywriters to fly above the Mediterranean resort advertising the Atome as "the world’s smallest bathing suit."