Two narrow straps that sit just above the hipbone, their edges cutting into sun-tanned flesh: the thong. 

These days, thanks to the revival of fashion from the 2000s, it seems to be everywhere: sticking out of low-rise jeans, shimmering underneath transparent beach dresses or revealing derrieres on the beach. 

But what many people might not know about the thong bathing suit is that its creation was political — and its creator a gay man. 

July 1974: Los Angeles' last summer of nude bathing 

"Everyone was nude," a lifeguard recalls in the newspaper LA Times. In the summer of 1974, Venice Beach became a sea of bare bottoms. Nobody knows exactly how the famous beach in Los Angeles became a popular location for naturists, but hippies readily popularized the nudist craze, taking advantage of the fact that there was no explicit ban on nudity yet. 

But the naked summer dream didn't last long: First came the press, then the police. After nudity made headlines, Los Angeles promptly banned it altogether. 

What does this have to do with the thong?

Rudi Gernreich, an Austrian-born designer who lived in LA, rebelled against the ban by creating a tiny piece of fabric for all genders that covered only the bare minimum.  

The designer was not interested in sexualizing bodies. On the contrary: He wanted to set them free.

"The liberation of the body will cure society of its sexual hang-up," Gernreich once said.

It wasn't the first time he broke taboos with fashion. 

Gernreich was born into a Jewish family in Vienna on August 8, 1922. He was 16 years old when he fled the Nazis with his mother in 1938, and they settled in Los Angeles. His father had taken his own life shortly before. To survive, his mother sold baked goods door-to-door and young Rudi washed corpses that were to be autopsied. 

"I do smile sometimes when people tell me my clothes are so body-conscious I must have studied anatomy. You bet I studied anatomy," Gernreich said, referring to this job, in an essay in Moffitt and Claxton's "The Rudi Gernreich Book." 

His actual studies, however, were in art; he went on to work as a costume designer and a dancer. His designs often show his fascination with bodies in movement.

'Winter or summer, male or female, everybody will dress alike'

Gernreich was ahead of his time. While homosexuality was still a criminal offense in the US, he co-founded the Mattachine Society, one of the first organizations for LGBTQ+ rights in the US.

For Gernreich, the future of fashion was unisex, and he promoted queer styles long before they became an established concept. 

"Clothing will not be identified as either male or female… women and men will wear skirts interchangeably… the aesthetics of fashion are going to involve the body itself," he predicted back in the 1970s.

Gernreich freed the nipple

In 1964, Gernreich presented a design that went down in history as women's first topless swimsuit: the monokini. The provocative piece, which covered the bottom up to the midriff, featured two straps that left the breasts completely exposed.

Gernreich believed that women should be allowed to show their nipples just as men do, and above all, that they should be the ones calling the shots when it comes to their clothing.

"I don't like to dictate women what to wear," he said in an interview in 1966.  

The designer, who died in 1985, remains a pioneer of body positivity, and his legacy marks how little has changed surrounding prudery — as today Instagram censors images of female nipples, and society still sexualizes nudity.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier