The String Look

In swimsuits, as in wit, Shakespeare's law still rules: brevity is the soul, etc.

Yesterday it was the bikini. Today it's the String.

The String? It started out on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro (see color pages opposite). Brazil's puritanical military regime had prosecuted a girl from Ipanema who went topless, and then permanently prohibited mammary nudity. Undaunted, the girls of Rio invented the String--known in Brazil as the Tonga--which is derived from an ancient Indian loincloth and consists of two minuscule triangles of cloth joined by a cord over either hip. The Tanga is a huge hit with Rio girl watchers because it bares a large part of the derriere--Brazilian males tend to be nadega (buttock) rather than peito (breast) admirers. The String spread to Italy a while ago, and now it is having its first tanga north of the border.

Early sales figures suggested that the String could become one of the most important Brazilian inventions since coffee. Bloomingdale's in Manhattan sold out its first order of 150 suits in two weeks. Ralph Paterno, owner of a Madison Avenue boutique who has his Strings made at his factory in Italy, sold 160 in two days. "I've had calls from all over for them from men--boy friends and husbands," he says. His suits cost from $35 to $40--v. $6 in Rio--and come in a variety of materials, including cotton and jersey, which Paterno favors "because the suit must be close to the body and you need soft fabric for that. Cotton doesn't give that close look."

Will the American male take to nadega gazing? "No question," says Paterno. American girls should also enjoy the minibikini's cheeky look. A 28-year-old Canadian woman teaching English in Rio says, "The Tanga reminds us of a G string, and what woman hasn't at some time wished she could wear a G string?" Says a strung-up Ipanema lovely: "It's bacana [right-on]. It's more bacana than a traditional bikini if you have the right body." Most of the girls from Ipanema have the right bodies.

For American women, manufacturers are producing several variations on the minibikini. Alexander's department store in New York has a version with a peek-through top. Cole of California Executive Jack Healy claims that his firm has "engineered the String differently so it will be wearable." The rear half of the unrefined Rio version, Healy says, "keeps creeping toward the center, and the wearer has to tug at it all the time."

The question that tugs at would-be String wearers is whether the minibikini will advertise their assets or expose unlovely flaws. Fashion advisers suggest that no woman should be strung after she is 40 years old. Beverly Hills Designer Jim Riva, who spins his own Strings, warns: "It's something I'd hate to see on every woman in the world. It's got to be for the svelte girl only." Jacqueline Onassis, age 44, who is not noticeably callipygian, sports one but has yet to be photographed from astern. In the U.S., the cheeky look has already begun to surface at pools and beaches from California to New York. By midsummer, any comely norte-americana miss can be the Girl from Ipanema.

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