A flippant expose of the country and people hosting the Paris Olympics. Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne channels his inner Einstein to unearth some great French inventions.
In the early days of international tennis, men played in full-length pants and long-sleeved, buttoned-up white shirts until French champion Rene Lacoste had a wardrobe malfunction.
The seven-time grand slam winner, nicknamed “the crocodile” for his tenacity, decided in 1929 that he’d probably play better in short sleeves. (Short pants came a few years later.)
So Lacoste designed a cotton short-sleeved shirt with a flat collar and put his crocodile emblem over the left breast, selling the shirts via the new company named after him. C’est magnifique!
Some forty years later French designer Ralph Lauren created his own version and replaced the crocodile with a polo player. And so the “polo shirt” was born and thanks to clever marketing became the universal term for tennis, golf and polo shirts.
But that’s not the only piece of global clothing created by the French.
In the 17th century town of Nimes local weavers tried to replicate a fabric from the Italian city of Genoa – known as Genes in France – using a stronger twill. It became known as the material “from Nimes” or “de Nimes” in French. Hence denim jeans (Genes).
And let’s not forget the bikini.
French engineer Louis Reard was running his mother’s lingerie business in 1946 when he saw women on St Tropez beach rolling down their two-piece swimsuits to get a better tan.
He was inspired to design a smaller two-piece swimsuit that exposed a woman’s navel for the first time. He named his product the bikini after Bikini Atoll where atomic tests had just been staged in the Pacific. Was he expecting his invention to go nuclear?
Reard’s bikini was unveiled in Paris in July 1946 but almost fell flat because he struggled to find women willing to model the skimpy swimsuit. French showgirl Micheline Bernardini, 19, rose to the challenge and modelled the bikini in the fashion show at a Paris swimming pool.
Bernardini received over 50,000 fan letters following the debut of the bikini. The tiny two-piece slowly gained popularity and by 1948 French Olympic diver Mady Moreau was wearing one while relaxing poolside. And then the new swimsuit went viral on beaches around the world after movie star Brigitte Bardot became known as the bikini girl of the French Riviera.
In fact Bardot can thank two French brothers for her stellar career.
It was 1895 when Louis and August Lumiere released the very first movie – 40 seconds of footage showing workers leaving the family factory. Calling their camera and projector equipment the cinematographe, the Lumiere brothers invented cinema and the industry now worth billions and enjoyed by billions.
The neon lights used to promote films around the world were also invented by a Frenchman.
George Claude stunned crowds at the 1910 Paris Auto Show when he sent electricity through a tube filled with neon gas and made it glow. A few years later he founded the Claude Neon company in the US to sell his neon lights.
Necessity is the famous mother of invention and even the great French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte got in on the act.
The ever-increasing size of his armies required a solution to keep the troops fed, and a reward of 12,000 gold francs was offered to anyone who could preserve large amounts of food.
French brewer Nicholas Appert had noticed that cooked food in a jar did not spoil if airtight. His method of sealing food in glass jars won the prize in 1810, and would ultimately lead to preserved and canned foods.
Nobody would know why his process worked until 1862 when fellow Frenchman Louis Pasteur discovered that applying heat to some foods could kill bacteria without significantly changing the flavour – especially in pasteurised dairy products. Pasteur’s work in chemistry and microbiology led to many breakthroughs in understanding the causes and preventions of diseases.
Emperor Napoleon III had a similar problem to his uncle when butter was in short supply for his large army that marched largely on bread. Despite France having some of the best butter in the world, he offered a prize for anyone who could create an alternative that would not go off.
This prize was won by French chemist Hippolyte Mege-Mouries in 1869 with a new spread made from blended oil he called oleomargarine, or margarine for short. It solved the French army’s problem, and at a fraction of the cost.
Some of the greatest inventions come from the simplest observations, such as when the paper-making Montgolfier brothers were watching clothes dry over a fire in the 1780s and noticed how pockets formed and billowed.
Joseph-Michel and his brother Jacques-Etienne then built a hot air balloon and performed public demonstrations including for King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette.
The brothers took the first manned hot-air balloon flight in 1783 – previous flights were tethered or involved animals – and balloons are still called Montgolfieres in France. Now you know why the Olympic flame was in a balloon at the opening ceremony of the Paris Games.
The feats of the Montgolfier brothers helped inspire another famous French invention by Louis-Sebastien Lenormand who successfully jumped from a building wearing what he called a “parachute” in 1783.
Soon afterwards compatriot Jean-Pierre Blanchard successfully used a silk parachute to drop a dog out of a hot air balloon. And in 1797 another Frenchman, André Garnerin, made the first successful human jump with a parachute, also from a balloon.
But wait there’s more. Louis Braille created the system of raised dots which enables the blind to read; Navy lieutenant and adventurer Jacques Cousteau helped develop the aqua-lung divers use to stay under water; and French doctor Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope in 1816.
But one of the inventions closest to France’s psyche is that of the bicycle with pedals. Tour de France anyone? Road Race or Time Trial perhaps?
While a German invented the first contraption identified as a bicycle, it was French blacksmith Pierre Michaux who, with his son Ernest, added pedals with a mechanical drive to a large front wheel. Their Michaudine Velocipede was the forerunner of the modern bike.
But let’s end with fashion and Coco Chanel’s Little Black Dress, a staple in women’s wardrobes the world over. Chanel invented the LBD back in the 1920s by divorcing black from being a mourning dress to a classy, chic fashion statement. One hundred years later, it’s ubiquitous.
NOTE – This is the latest in a series of “Frivolous facts about France for Olympic bon vivants”. You can read other Frivolous Facts stories by clicking on these topics: Language, Olympic History.
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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