SUBSCRIBE: bit.ly www.FTV.com – FTV highlights the Beach Bunny show at Mercedes-Benz Miami Swim Week 2012 showcasing models in red, white, and blue bikinis, prints, and neons. You might remember this show as the one opened and closed by Sports Illustrated cover girl Kate Upton, who also…

Meet voluptuous Kate Upton, the super-hot supermodel that’s steaming up the swimsuit world. She’s a champion horseback rider – but it’s her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, ads for Guess Swimwear and runway shows for Beach Bunny Swimwear that has everyone saying, “Who is that girl?” Bikini.com caught up with Kate at the Beach Bunny Swimwear show in Miami Beach. Check out more Bikini.com coverage of Beach Bunny at bikini.com Join us on facebook for more Bikini.com fun! facebook.com

www.A3Network.com. Bikini Party Miami Beach! The bikini is typically a women’s two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as “a woman’s scanty two-piece bathing suit” or “a man’s brief swimsuit“. It is often worn in hot weather, while swimming or sunbathing. The shapes of both parts of a bikini resemble women’s underwear, and the lower part can range from revealing thong or g-string to briefs. While two-piece bathing suits had been worn on the beach before, the modern bikini was invented by French engineer Louis Réard in 1946. He named it after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, the site of the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests in July that year. The bikini is perhaps the most popular female beachwear around the globe, according to French fashion historian Olivier Saillard due to “the power of women, and not the power of fashion”. As he explains, “The emancipation of swimwear has always been linked to the emancipation of women. By the mid 2000s, bikinis had become a 1 million business annually, according to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company. The bikini has boosted spin-off services like bikini waxing and the sun tanning industries Predecessors of the bikini date to antiquity, in Çatalhöyük and the Greco-Roman world. Art dating from the Diocletian period (286–305 AD) in …

www.Bikini.com Often featured in the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, Brazilian designer swimwear brand Poko Pano takes inspiration from the Amazon and its traditional colors, plants and wildlife. See how designer Paola Robba does it all with a sense of fun in her runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim in Miami.