monokini

American  

[mon-uh-kee-nee] / ˌmɒn əˈki ni /

noun

1. a close-fitting one-piece bathing suit with cutouts that reveal large areas of skin.

2. a topless bathing suit designed in the 1960s with a high-waisted bottom and two thin straps going from the center of the chest outward in a V shape, and connecting in a halter behind the neck.

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Etymology

Origin of monokini

First recorded in 1960–65; mono- + (bi)kini, as if bikini were formed from the prefix bi- ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

The 24-year-old reality TV star posed in a pink and yellow monokini as she featured the first design of Kylie Swim.

From Fox News

The 52-year-old television host rocked a sexy black mesh monokini while on vacation in Miami with her husband Richard Marx.

From Fox News

A back-view photo of the monokini appeared in Look, and a front-facing photo appeared in WWD in 1964 worn by the designer’s collaborator and muse, model Peggy Moffitt.

From Los Angeles Times

Another of Gernreich’s groundbreaking pieces on display is the monokini, a topless swimsuit style he created for Look magazine after he told Women’s Wear Daily in 1962 that “bosoms will be uncovered in five years.”

From Los Angeles Times

To better understand him as a radical explorer of fashion's tropes as stealth instruments of activism, consider his matching 1970s miniskirts for men and women, his unisex cat suit or the military-looking “Kent State Ensemble” that is included in the Boston exhibition while his braless bathing suit and infamous breast-baring “monokini” — for a time the most notorious article of clothing on the planet — mysteriously are not.

From New York Times