Coast Celebrates Bikini Love Affair

Coast Celebrates Bikini Love Affair

Bikini flashback: Bulletin bikini girls Anita Black, left, and Leanne Wink. The photo was taken in 1985.

HE `Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini' could have been the theme song for the Gold Coast during the '50s.

The bikini is synonymous with the history of our golden Coast and with good reason.

As soon as Gold Coaster Paula Stafford perfected the two-piece in the '50s, women clamoured for the racy new fashion and became regular sun worshippers on our iconic Surfers Paradise beach front.

While the rest of Australia was still preoccupied with covering up their forbidden flesh, Gold Coasters wouldn't bat an eyelid at a woman wearing her bikini through the centre of town.

The controversy made Ms Stafford the name on everyone's lips and every girl wanted her bikinis on their hips.

Dutch immigrant Rene Kuiper was one of those women who sashayed down the glitter strip in a Paula Stafford creation.

She arrived to the Gold Coast on a scooter after a day trip from Brisbane with her husband, Evert, in 1956 and they both liked it so much they decided to stay.

Just like Mrs Kuiper and her husband, a cocktail of dreams enticed thousands of people to the Gold Coast during the heady post-World War II boom period and their fascinating stories have become the focus of a new exhibition titled `It's Hot in Brisbane but it's Coolangatta' which opened yesterday at the Gold Coast Arts Centre. It runs until May 25.

Mrs Kuiper said it was common to see Gold Coast women walking from one end of town to the other in nothing but their bikini.

The exhibition features some of the stories collected by respected Gold Coast oral historian Lesley Jenkins during the Highway Heritage oral history project in 2007.

She interviewed 40 characters and historical figures who visited here and stayed on during the '50s, '60s, and '70s.