Word: gernreich
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Fashion Designer Rudi Gernreich, 47, is best known for designing almost nothing at all: the topless bathing suit. Although he sold 3,000 copies at $25 apiece, he did not really mean to market it. He made the suit mainly as a "statement" in support of the "liberated look" of the late 1960s-a look he further promoted with his No-Bra bra, clinging knit minidresses, "Swiss cheese" swimsuits and see-through blouses. All that pioneering so exhausted Rudi that he treated himself to a year's sabbatical in order to restore his flagging energies; he convalesced comfortably...
...Rudi readied his forces for the first big assault: a preview showing of his 1970 line to be staged at the Hancock Park home of Socialite Eugenia Butler. The first order of business was to shave the heads and bodies of his two models. "Hair hides a lot," explained Gernreich, "and body hair is too sexual. I don't want to confuse the idea of freedom with sexual nakedness. Openness and honesty call for no covering of any kind." For Thomas Broom, 30, Rudi's male model, the prospect of all-over alopecia held no horror...
...colored makeup to their naked bodies, and it was time to get into their costumes, such as they were. Both models dressed identically in black-and-white monokinis, covered with white knit bell-bottom trousers and rib-length black-and-white tank tops. Then, while photographers snapped pictures and Gernreich gave cues and directions, the models rehearsed their act for the show. Off came the tank tops. Down dropped the trousers. The monokinis slid slowly to the floor. After stepping to one side, Tom and Renee stood silently like statues -or inmates of a concentration camp...
...formally attired, champagne-sipping guests on the spacious first floor of the Butler mansion. After taking off their tank tops, Broom and Holt will linger awhile and then ascend a circular staircase to strip to the buff in full view of the onlookers. "It's a shock thing," Gernreich admits...
...Rudi Gernreich designs the topless bathing suit...